2023-06-01 21:36:00
Pedro Proença was this Thursday (01) reappointed without opposition for a third and final term in the presidency of the Portuguese Professional Football League (LPFP), announced the organization, without revealing the results of the elections of the governing bodies.
In the election, which took place this afternoon at the organization’s headquarters in Porto, the former international referee led the only candidacy for the four-year period 2023-2027 and became the first president in history to be elected to three consecutive terms.
According to a statement published on the official website of the LPFP, the representatives of the 18 sports companies of the I Liga and the 16 of the secondary level – with the exception of the B teams of Benfica and FC Porto – also re-elected Mário Costa as president of the Board of the General Assembly , Carlos Branco for the direction of the Fiscal Council and Américo Esteves at the head of the Jurisdictional Council, all members of Pedro Proença’s list.
National champion Benfica was represented by director general Lourenço Coelho, while president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa voted on behalf of FC Porto, with Sporting exercising that right by Amândio Novais, from the club’s legal department.
“I’ve known Pedro Proença since his first term, when I joined the board of the LPFP. He’s a person with a lot of quality, capacity and great character. It’s not by chance that there’s only one list. In my opinion, it’s the recognition of all the clubs for the work he has been doing”, told journalists the president of Rio Ave, António Silva Campos, one of the top leaders of elite clubs present in the poll.
Rui Fontes, president of Marítimo, also underlined that it was “natural that unanimity happens when the work is well done and the clubs are satisfied”, but referred that there are “many concerns about the issue of centralization of television rights”.
“I had the opportunity to get to know the LPFP in its beginnings and to get to know it again 20 years later. I see that it is completely different in its functioning. Football has evolved a lot and that is due to the work that Pedro Proença carried out with his team and what the clubs did”, defended the director of the Madeiran club, also from the I Liga.
Pedro Proença is the 10th distinguished face to pass through the command of the LPFP, following Luís Duque (2014-15), Mário Figueiredo (2012-15), the current president of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), Fernando Gomes (2010-11), by Hermínio Loureiro (2006-10), by Valentim Loureiro (1989-91, 1991-94 and 1996-2006), by the current leader of FC Porto, Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa (1995-96), Manuel Damásio (1994-95), who was then in charge of Benfica, and the now deceased Lito Gomes de Almeida (1980-89) or João Aranha (1978-80).
Pedro Proença had been elected for the first time as president of the LPFP in 2015, beating the then opponent and predecessor Luís Duque, with 58.2% of the votes, and was reappointed without competition and unanimously for another term four years later, with 95, 8%.
Supported in an unprecedented way by the 34 sports societies in the 2023 elections, the former referee, aged 52, included in his 120 measures the modification of the statutes of the LPFP, to apply the limitation of terms, the internationalization of competitions, the reduction of costs of context of professional football and the centralization of audiovisual rights.
The swearing-in of the new governing bodies for the 2023-2027 four-year period will take place on Tuesday at 6 pm, again at the João Aranha auditorium, at the LPFP headquarters, in Porto.
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