2.12 The Story of Alcochete: Lessons to be learned

So to recap our penultimate post in the second series we gave a fork in the road which you could go either way and probably end up in exactly the same spot. That the overwhelming evidence points to the fact that it was never a planned attack. Therefore you couldn't have had moral authors. What the evidence suggests is that yes it was a planned trip, no one is denying that. Neither are they denying the fact that they were for want of a better expression going to put the wind up them for a short while. Again don't confuse this as a plan to attack the players and staff. There are clearly some rogue elements who took it too far on the day. If that part was planned in advance then the most likely explanation is it took place on the way over in one or more of the vehicles. Or the situation simply escalated. Someone knows the truth and the list of those in court who didn't choose to provide testimony is the most telling point of all for me. For them silence may have seemed golden but largely they all got hit with the same sentence with reductions applied based on remorse and past behaviour. As we've learned through the use of Occam's razor time and time again, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

So it's time to conclude the second series. This time it's a case of highlighting everything that was wrong about the case. Can we close the chapter at least knowing why none of it ever seemed to add up? On with the post…

All things considered in respects of the trials that took place, Cândida Vilar's decision to go after Bruno Jacinto, Nuno Mendes and Bruno de Carvalho as the moral authors of the attacks on Alcochete could politely be described as being misguided and a mistake. If you don't want to be so polite I think you'd get away with claiming it was fucking shambolic and even then that feels polite. Whatever your feelings on the former club president, the total lack of evidence presented from the off was always telling. I write that not just from my own point of view but from telling markers in the case. It should of course be noted that of all the 44 defendants, they were the only three who weren't found guilty on any charges and were acquitted. So where does the blame ultimately lie? Firstly and clearly at the door of Vilar. There was some sort of a case to answer, specifically in relation to Alcochete (treating the accusation of drug trafficking as a side) for every one of the defendants on trial, all except those three men we've just mentioned “The alleged masterminds.” That's pretty damning and does not reflect well upon her. Sorry that's an understatement isn't it? It couldn't reflect more poorly on the woman if she was stood in the hall of mirrors in the palace of Versailles.

Judge Delca has to shoulder part of the blame as well. The decision to try the case under the terms of terrorism helps no one's cause when the dust settles. It's as big a faux pas as charging those three men originally. I get that certain terms are used as umbrella terms but you can't get past the connotations of what a terrorism attack is. For what actually happened it just feels fucking ridiculous. I've done my level best to try to not swear my way through these two series but sometimes you have to convey your feelings in the words best suited. Is a fucking shit show. A complete fucking shower of shit. Oh someone closed the door and wouldn't let people out? Better add kidnapping to the charges then Cândida!

If we take July 3rd, 2019 as a starting point, it's Vilar in the pre-trial who initiated the hostilities with de Carvalho when she decides to accuse him of being the mastermind and charging him with a total of 98 crimes which included terrorism. At this stage she wanted to keep him in protective custody but Decla, declared that there was insufficient evidence which is why he gets out on th €70,000 bail. So if there's insufficient evidence to hold him in protective custody, doesn't that suggest there's just insufficient evidence to try him at all, let alone on those charges? He's not in the messages used to plan the attack, they've not been forwarded to him and the words “do what you want,” were given their correct context very early on and surely would have been in some of the original witness statements? 

Never one to shy away from a microphone, de Carvalho gave an interview the week before with Expresso in which he questioned whether Cândida Vilar had "an agenda" or a mental "disorder" for accusing him. No surprise that she took offence to that and it feels pot, kettle black with the man questioning her mental state of mind. Throughout both series I've held my hands up to my own poor mental state in the past which is the only reason I've thrown shade on de Carvalho's at various points. With all that said though and you'll have to forgive me for paraphrasing so crudely here, but he's saying to Vilar ‘are you mental?’ You'd be forgiven if at the time you think how typical of him, rude, arrogant and dismissive of a female prosecutor. But when you read it all back and sift it through all with a fine tooth comb you're left with the exact same thought. Seriously what the fuck was she thinking? Her only possible get out of jail free card is if she had some sort of pressure applied on her from above but that's something I've just plucked out of thin air. There's no evidence I've seen of it.

Just why did Vilar believe that the former president had ordered the attacks? Because there really wasn't any hard evidence to prove it. Just some hearsay and an attempt to twist the context of four words said at a meeting. Did none of her team point this out to her? Did the judge not take her into his chambers for a private word and point out the obvious that this was a disaster waiting to happen? Look all told had the evidence been there then great, go ahead with the case against all three men. But with no hard evidence, no SMS, no WhatsApp, email or wiretaps or messages attached to the feet of pigeons then no, just don't do it. Judge Decla admits he doesn't think the case against him is very strong. Not very strong? It's not even strong. Don't put it at the maximum end and judge a scale under that. Whilst not the understatement of the century it is still one hell of an understatement nonetheless. 

Óscar Ferreira conducted the initial interrogation of de Carvalho so it wasn't even Vilar who was busy finalising the indictment. What did he make of it I wonder? Does he shoulder some of the blame?

Why doesn't it get kicked out at the pre-trial stage or in the court or appeals? I find it all quite baffling. 

It transpires that Vilar asked Delca to authorise wiretaps two months after the attacks on de Carvalho's phone. And did he? Did he bollocks. Decla ruled that whilst the Facebook posts from de Carvalho following the defeat against Atlético de Madrid "increased the climate of animosity between supporters and players," the evidence gathered by the Public Prosecutor's Office was not strong enough to violate the suspect's privacy. 

But Vilar is every inch as bad as de Carvalho at banging her own drum and believing her own hype. It's not a case of inciting the attacks, she genuinely seems to have believed that he green lit them, despite having no evidence. Occam's razor time again - if you have no evidence to support your claim, then the simplest answer would clearly suggest he had no direct involvement. 

Vilar and Declar think there is some evidence of his guilt, both have the added bonus that ultimately it will fall to Judge Pires to have to decide. I imagine upon seeing what was presented she made the court clerk cross both their names from her Christmas card list. I say that, perhaps they don't send cards in Portugal but you know what I mean. 

But all told there is no direct proof of his involvement. If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.

So what was there really when all was said and done? Well you've got Jacinto telling Vilar that Mustafá had told him that de Carvalho had green lit the attacks. Yet no one ever presented evidence that Mustafá knew anything about them. In fact the only real key links to de Carvalho and the attacks seem to have come through the phone conversation with Fernando Mendes. The latter admits to being drunk during one of the conversations and not remembering what was said but even in the one he claimed to remember it was no more than telling de Carvalho he was going to talk to the players and him having no issue with it. 

Anything else? Well, Vilar also argued that at the meeting on the 14th that Bruno de Carvalho said the Taça de Portugal was “shit.” … He's a man child. He's the kid on Christmas Day who wanted a racing bike but got a pack of colouring crayons instead. Sporting had just missed out on a €20m plus pay cheque. If someone said to me ‘it’s OK we've still got the Taça,’ in the same situation I'd have probably said fuck off it's shit as well. I'd have definitely said it about the Supertaça. It's not like he had a fiver each way on the grand national and watched his horse come in sixth and lost a tenner. That's his budget in tatters for the 2018/19 season, it means sponsorship is harder to get, less matchday income and if there was anyone he did actually like left amongst the players then maybe he'd be forced to sell them. To be fair he does by now seem to hate them all so I don't suppose it mattered. If he's got to sell someone then he doesn't want them injured and I don't buy at this meeting that any threat towards William is anything but a tenuous link to what ends up happening during the attacks. It's merely all a coincidence rather than a grand conspiracy. 

In Vilar's indictment she acknowledged that the investigation was not yet completed. 

For example - How important would the deleted messages on André Geraldes phone have been? Might have been important for Jacinto I guess. However only just in so much as it might validate his claims that he messages him people are en route. Geraldes isn't accused of being a moral author so at worst all he'd be guilty of is looking at his phone later and going fuck I missed those, I'll delete them and pretend I didn't see them. So all that happens is Jacinto's claim in his statement can't be confirmed which I guess might actually be important if you're trying to claim he didn't warn people yet we know he tells Ricardo Gonçalves so rewind back to my original point and forgive me for showing my working out on the test paper. 

Turns out whilst taking the prisoners to the wrong court house was a major cockup it still wasn't as bad as Vilar forgetting to request the special complexity of the case.

If it all felt rushed and under prepared I think it's safe to suggest that's because it was and all because Cândida Vilar didn't tick a box somewhere. Remember what I was saying about due diligence on court cases? Had she have done that then it would have given her more time to conclude the investigation. Instead she filed it hastily. The problem for me is that even had she done it properly I think she still ends up with the wrong three at the top. 

The reason it ends up in such a mess is the knock on effect of this grave error means there must be a preliminary hearing decision by September 21st to prevent the release of the first defendants detained. 

I think all my points written above are quite reasonably considered and thought out. Funny thing is actually despite all that, Judge Decla doesn't need any proof of a defendant's guilt. He only needs circumstantial evidence that makes their conviction at trial probable. But I'd still argue ‘probable - my arse.’ I say funny, clearly no one was laughing. Oh no I lie. The lawyers laughed at Nuno Mendes in court when he asked if he was getting out. That felt a very fucking stupid thing to do it has to be said.

So we've done Nuno Mendes and Bruno de Carvalho to death. Let's close the chapter on them. What about Jacinto? Do we ever think he looks like a man who might have been an integral part to planning the attacks? Do me a favour. I've been around football fans for enough years to know there's one or two hangers on that are desperate to be accepted as part of the group and they end up letting people take advantage of them. Either they are aware of that fact or maybe they're completely oblivious to it. De Carvalho isn't my cup of tea but he's been married four times and one of those times was to a pop star so he must have some chops in the charm department. Or maybe he's rich and hung like a baby's arm…either way he's got enough about him to have made it to the position of club president of one of Os Três Grandes. You look at photos of Mustafá and you think to yourself - yeah clearly the man's the real deal. In some photos you imagine he's quite jovial but in the same respect if I'm personally picking a fight with him then I probably need to be sectioned. We know women love a bad boy and you imagine a lot of members hero worshipped him. Jacinto though looks like he might have been an accounts clerk or a ticket inspector on the railways. He's an unassuming man and if you told me people took advantage of him I could well believe it. Doesn't make it true but … 

Naïvety is a curse, stupidity is even worse. Let's hypothetically say that an officer is sat in front of Jacinto… hypothetically remember…and that officer says ‘this isn't looking great for you is it? I think you're looking at prison time here and they'll eat you for breakfast. If hypothetically someone said that to him and then they said - but if you tell us something that might be helpful, that would help us, help you and we'd like to help you because we think you've been naïve but still complicit - do you think he might have made something up? In a moment of panic thought to himself ‘fuck,’ what happens if I am convicted of being a terrorist? I can't go to jail, I won't survive. I'm just saying… hypothetically. Don't sue me. Not that I'm worth anything anyway.

You see it is possible to tell the truth, just hide out critical parts of information. Hope that you're not asked to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God. He said he learns about those going on the internet. Well what did he mean by that? Because they're not exactly broadcasting it, they're planning it in WhatsApp groups. That said did that part relate to the casuals because Tiago Silva made it earlier to him they were going. He does claim that Jacinto said to pressure the players. Doesn't feel like much does it in the grams scale of things and would you pay him much attention?

So let's say he sees Tiago Silva mid afternoon and one of the men knows when training is. Given Aleluia is friends with William, maybe the player let it slip accidentally. Or maybe Jacinto lets it slip accidentally or maybe they have a spotter. Whichever, doesn't matter. Mr three pints and pissed is going to be useful cover to have because if you have planned something bigger and you want to deny your part then he becomes your exit strategy. Fernando Mendes maintains to the last he went to talk to Jorge Jesus. Let's imagine Nuno Torres and Tiago Silva are both telling Jacinto, please meet us there because you can liaise with us and the players. It'll all be fine. We want to be professional. Then imagine something is said en route and perhaps he does learn something off the internet but what he doesn't say is that he's driving and Torres read him something out from, let's say a Facebook message. Nuno says this doesn't look great and Bruno phones Ricardo Gonçalves. So when they all arrive he's Nuno's ticket to get the blue BMW in, they all claim - nothing to do with us and drive off leaving Jacinto stood there complicit but with no idea he'd just had his pants pulled down. 

Let's surmise Tiago Silva tells him there's only going to be 4 or 5 of us going and they don't ask him to go, they tell him he's going, kids in the playground shit. He's the foil, the patsy, the get out of jail free card. Wasn't us, we were here for another reason entirely and look here's Bruno as our evidence. Yet the GNR goes this doesn't look good. You're on site, you drove the getaway driver there, you vouched for him to come in, you say you told Geraldes but there's no evidence. Where were you in the afternoon Bruno? With Tiago Silva? OK let me write they down. Anyone else about? Fernando Mendes who was also at Alcochete. This ain't looking good for you now is it? Where were you Monday? On a flight. OK and who did you speak to then? Nuno Mendes, as in leader of the Juve Leo? I mean he'd have had to have planned this wouldn't he? Stands to reason. You were a member of the Juve Leo right? You would know. 

The thing is an avalanche doesn't start as an avalanche it starts as a snowball and gets bigger and bigger and if you're caught in its wake then frankly you're fucked. Jacinto feels like a man you could threaten with violence and manipulate and at the end of it all he just wants to be accepted. He's no different from the rest of us. He's guilty of being taken for a ride and ironically complicit in taking someone for an actual ride. I know people like this. Decent people that can be taken advantage of. His crime is that he's allowed himself to get caught up in something and only realises too late in the day but by all accounts he does try tell Geraldes in the afternoon and then when he realises maybe this is more serious than I thought tells Gonçalves but too late for him to have locked things down. Yet he makes attempts nonetheless. This doesn't shout criminal mastermind to me. At no point in 100,000 words written have I felt he was complicit. Which I guess means we draw a line under him. 

So what should have happened? 

Well the prosecution and the GNR should have looked at the case more objectively. 

If Vilar and the GNR had taken Válter Semedo and Tiago Silva as their starting point then they could have worked outwards and built layers onto the case in a methodical manner. We started this new series with Fernando Mendes as the man at the forefront of everything. To me that read as far more plausible if you wanted to know who the mastermind of the attack was. I'd call what I was doing research originally but let's swap the term to investigating, which is what the GNR and the prosecution team should have done more fully. You could say to me - well it's easy for you to draw a conclusion now. OK fine, but my response is I've worked off probably a fifth of what they had available to them. During my investigation for want of a better term I've gone down one road and when it doesn't have any plausibility to it I've crossed it off the list which is what they should have done and clearly didn't. 

Everyday we all make assumptions and frequently those we make are in fact wrong. Here, if I don't make certain assumptions then truthfully I’d never have gotten anywhere. It's really about knowing when you're heading down a dead end or in the wrong direction totally. Most drivers will have driven that extra bit of distance before finally admitting defeat. Cândida Vilar had watched too much Thelma and Louise. All through both series there are things I've written that have sounded entirely plausible. I imagine that's also the case for the GNR with their initial investigation. But I've shown you all my working out and the thought process. I'm not claiming I right. You choose what you want to believe. Maybe I've missed something startling obvious. There's been eight years in the middle so perhaps newer information came to light? If you know it then please share it.

The simple equation is that members of the Juve Leo set up the WhatsApp groups in which the invasion was planned + who they are in relation to Nuno Mendes + prior knowledge anything that happens has to have his consent = ?

If that's your theory / hypothesis / assumption (whatever you want to call it) then how do you test it? Most importantly are you ensuring you've not missed anything else out that could need further investigation?

Because what's the equation on the flip side? Because working backwards from 44 defendants from the end point we know three were acquitted of all charges, those said to have been the masterminds. It was always supposed that owing to some of the names involved this had to have been a Juve Leo led thing. Yet Nuno Mendes is sat with the defendants giving his testimony going I've no idea who the vast majority of these people sat in the courtroom are. 14 of those defendants had links to Juve Leo. I'm not sure if that's 14 plus Nuno Mendes or including him. The actual amount of cocaine never really seemed to matter so let's use 

41 defendants - 14 Juve Leo members = 27 defendants with no known links to the Sporting Claques. These are the 27 casuals. 

We've the testimony of Nuno Mendes that he doesn't have a relationship with the casuals, in fact he actively tries to ensure they have no place on the terraces. He's the one actively trying to police the issue on behalf of the club. So that's roughly double the number of casuals than Juve Leo members sat being tried, or again, roughly two in every three defendants. 

There had to be a link between them all, the middle man, or men. 

So if it was planned, then who planned the invasion after all was said and done? It wasn't Bruno de Carvalho, or Nuno Mendes or Bruno Jacinto. At best I think we leave a question mark by the name of Fernando Mendes. On one hand Nuno Mendes didn't point the finger at him, only that he might have been the fuse at Funchal Airport. On the other you've got Fernando with Tiago Silva on the afternoon of May the 15th. You've got the incident at Funchal Airport where he's clearly aggrieved enough at Marcus Acuña that he'd have attacked him there and then. We have the phone calls to Bruno de Carvalho asking him for the player's home address. And yet he doesn't go into the dressing rooms. But then again when Jorge Jesus asked him for help, neither does he stop it. I think with him you can go round in circles all day. Maybe having stated in an original post that you link Bruno de Carvalho to him and charge him with Articles 26 and 27 of the Portuguese legislative statute that actually you attach that to Fernando Mendes in this instance from Tiago Silva. Was he aware of some of the intentions and did nothing to stop the acts from being carried out? Or maybe he is entirely complicit? I genuinely don't know now. What I do know is that if I was in the investigation stage as part of the team, which roads I wouldn't have continued travelling down. 

Nuno Torres?

Let's try to simplify everything. 

Was it a planned attack or invasion? I'm going to say no, however caveat that with a few idiotic remarks in the group chat which don't help their cause. 

Did they have permission to attend? No.

Why do they cover their faces? Because there were journalists and TV cameras outside. Let's also assume even if your plan is to merely shout at a few players and scarper afterwards you may not want your faces on CCTV. 

Is it therefore safe to assume that whatever the original plan, things just escalated? Yes. Because we've discussed the moral authorship of the attacks and who it pertains to. But when all is said and done it doesn't ever actually feel like a planned attack. That's the critical point. What it really feels like is a group of fans who've gotten too big for their boots and believe they have a right to just turn up at the club's training ground and voice their anger. Sadly in doing so it then escalated into something far worse. We've testimony acknowledging it stopped when some of the defendants went - it wasn't supposed to happen like this. 

So is that the conclusion?

Have I genuinely taken you through all of these posts to leave that as my conclusion? That I've done an Occam's razor and gone with the most simple explanation. That everything that happened prior was just a coincidence? The social media posts after the Atlético Madrid from Bruno de Carvalho, his falling out with the players, the incidents at full time after the loss to Marítimo and at the airport, the flares being thrown… That when all is said and done that there is no moral authorship, no criminal mastermind behind it all. Because the crux of the matter is that really all that happened was a group of fans wanted to vent their anger and tell them that they're not fit to wear the shirt. And rather than shout it from the stands (factoring the league season had already finished) their one last chance to make a point is to go to Alcochete before the final, but knowing they won't have permission to enter they do it by illegal means which is why they run down the road faces covered en mass. That everything after that is just an escalation. It was never a planned attack or an invasion. Or maybe one or two rogue elements had some intention of doing more. Let's say one car full.

Has everyone been looking at this in entirely the wrong light and from the wrong angle from start to finish, me included? That simply it was something that got way out of hand. Yes one or two people may have had different intentions on the day. Wanted to mark themselves out as something more,  make a name for themselves as casuals…

It's never felt like a well planned and orchestrated attack has it? The only weapons they had were belts which would most likely have been an after thought. That's all they had to hand. The only other weapons in the attack are improvised, things picked up and thrown. Because surely if it was a genuine planned attack then you'd have gone in with something to hand. They went with metal bars to the Estádio da Luz.

All through both series I’ve stated my opinion that trying the case under the exaggerated crime of terrorism was a massive mistake. It should have been tried at Almada Court even if something temporary had to have been set up which would have meant that Vilar wouldn't have been the prosecutor. Then surely the case would have been tried as aggression. It definitely doesn't end up as her own personal vanity project which blows up spectacularly in her own face. In fact the biggest terrorist case was when she basically blew up her reputation and career. Define irony. The GNR who didn’t have any experience of trying a terrorism case could have executed their standard practices and worked their way out from the evidence that they did have. The critical key to unlocking everything was the WhatsApp groups and the signals of phones from two masts, one at Lidl where the majority of those who went had met up and then again at Alcochete during the attack.

Note – leave your phone at home folks if you’re going to do something ridiculously stupid. I mean of course the real advice is don’t do anything stupid.

So when you add layers where would that have taken you? Well you’d got the filling with the defendants that were present on the day. Then it’s a case of sorting out through testimony who carried out the attacks and who were there simply to make up the numbers. Can you verify that with CCTV footage and testimonies of those attacked? Then you have a pretty solid case to build on from the ground upwards.

So the question then is how high did the command go? Fernando Mendes? Certainly enough evidence to support this claim. Note support and not prove Add his name above the line of Semedo and Silva. What about Nuno Mendes? Well I have no issue with the theory that he would have had to have signed off on the attack had he known about it, but what did the evidence actually suggest? Well we know he wasn’t in the groups as member, he wasn’t present and from the testimony of many such as Válter Semedo and Bocas, not only did he not know about it, but he had deliberately not been included because people knew what his response would have been - namely to have made an official approach to the club which given it was the week of the Taca de Portugal final, would have been turned down.

Sure, bring him in for questioning in relation to it. He is the leader of the Juve Leo after all. But in reality everything took a wrong turn and it all became a conspiracy theorists paradise. We had three people where there was no evidence to support the claims named as the moral authors. We had Nuno Mendes on separate charges of drug trafficking where again there had been no evidence and this was all done at vast expense to the Portuguese tax payer. Had it been an attack on SC Vianense in the Campeonato de Portugal it would have been fish and chip paper within a week and no one would have paid it much attention I’m sure because when it comes to the news there’s always something bigger to come along and steal the headlines on the front pages. I probably should have just gone with - there's always bigger fish to fry. 

Clearly what happened cannot be condoned. Yet by the same token we have heard from enough people who state that it was not planned that way. Which is another reason surely as to why it should have been tried in the smaller court as aggression and certainly not in Lisbon under Vilar as terrorism. I feel like we’re playing Cluedo now. Was it Islam Slimani in the pantry with the rolling pin? No? Bugger.

It clearly got out of hand, it was always misguided and there were some at least in the original group who realised it wasn’t a good idea and didn’t attend. There were those again who just acted as a weight in numbers and enough who finally had some common sense and went actually this was really stupid, lets get out of here.

Statistically speaking the chances that every one of the Sporting CP players, coaching staff and staff from Alcochete in a fight or flight response chose the latter is virtually impossible. We never hear from the defendants who were the football casuals. We only here the players side of events and it seems strange there is never any mention of players or staff fighting back. I appreciate it may have been a confusing period of minutes for them all, but unless someone is holding a baton, a knife or a gun at me I don't think I'd feel genuinely threatened that my life was in danger. However if one of two known faces told me they'd find out where my family lived, I think I would be inclined to believe that part. But what you don't see are players sporting black eyes, cuts and bruises. We only see the head of Bas Dost where he was struck with a belt. We know that Marcos Acuña and Rodrigo Battaglia in the airport were more than happy to defend themselves. I don't imagine either would have been shrinking violents if lives really were in danger. Marcos Acuña is a man who chased Denzel Dumfries all the way across a pitch in the Club World Cup wanted a fight when he played for River Plate. I'm just saying!

Whilst some had previous convictions, the vast majority got suspended sentences because they had clean records. They weren’t known casuals who turned up, they got swept away in something and acted in the wrong manner for which a lot of them showed some level of remorse. I only discovered that certainly in the case of Semedo his sentence also came with a banning order for attending football matches so one assumes that this was also extended to all members. (Later note - yes it did). That probably hurt them as much as anything although I’m not saying that it wasn’t warranted, far from it. Oddly I wouldn’t say that to ban them for life would be fair because you need to show you can be rehabilitated. No one can continually be punished for their mistakes, although I say that in reason. If you’ve committed some really serious crimes then clearly there is an exception to a rule. But at the end of the day other than achieving their initial objective of scaring the shit out of the players, other than Bas Dost, most of what they were left with were the mental scars. It could have been a lot worse if it was a planned coordinated attack rather than a few idiots who thought they’d go in, make some noise and somehow that would inspire them to do better and take the fans' opinions seriously. Not the greatest plan in the world was it?

As I keep saying we all do stupid shit. Just thankfully not as stupid as some of this shit.

So if you went as high as Nuno Mendes, was there a need to go higher? I mean you can look but it didn’t mean that you needed to touch.

With the drugs found as Casinha what should have happened? Well I can actually tell you what we’d have done in England because that is what I do for a living. Here you need a premises licence to sell alcohol and there are four main licensing objectives that all licence holders need to adhere to. If they fail to meet those then they can be prosecuted. One of which is the prevention of crime and disorder. So where a premises licenced to sell alcohol is being used to sell drugs, then a review of the licence occurs and if the offender is proven then the licence is removed. Who was selling the drugs is a criminal matter for the police. So in effect Casinha if it was based here would have lost its licence to sell alcohol on matchday which means it no longer has a reason to trade and in effect the punishment would have been closure. I’ve touched on the laws in regard to drugs briefly in a previous post saying they were some of the most well regarded but I never actually went into further detail so it’s probably worth doing before I sign off.

In 2001 the country decriminalised the personal use and possession of all illicit drugs. Rather than being sent to prison or given a criminal record, individuals caught with a 10-day supply or less face administrative proceedings and are referred to specialised health and social work commissions. Depending on how cocaine is cut 15g could yield you between 30 and 150 wraps so I doubt very much that you could have argued it was for personal use but it does only become a criminal offence for anything over a 10 day supply. Drugs are generally confiscated. It’s a health led approach rather than a criminally led one. In short, we would treat the issue in a very different manner here.

Of course it goes without saying that one of the biggest lessons to be learned will be the level of relationship that not just Sporting CP but any club has with its claques. I have repeatedly made light of the fact that this doesn't happen in England at all. It clearly sets a dangerous president with certain fractions believing they have too much power and that clubs should bend to their will. 

It might seem an odd thing to write here and to admit to but I'm not entirely convinced I even like football or ever did. What goes on, on the pitch is purely incidental. I gave up watching English football a long time ago. It's so sterile now especially in comparison to leagues on the continent. The Italians are the still the masters at it. Every game is soundtracked like an opera. It's truly beautiful. But all credit to the Sportinguista's especially those who travel away in vast numbers. Those in the away end in the 2024/25 at Boavista definitely were the Mágico in Mágico Sporting. Having been privileged to stand in the middle of a Champions League night surrounded by some of the most passionate fans of any team in the world I can happily admit this is what draws me to Sporting. This huge mass of bodies that are like an orchestra being brought to life by an invisible conductor and finally when everyone has tuned their instruments they find a sweet spot where they become one living organism all sharing the same heart beat and pulse rate. I've got chills just thinking about it now. The problem is when this passion is pointed in the wrong direction and it spills over into something else and in these two series we've learned where it can go wrong. 

I don't doubt in their minds that those who went did so with the best of intentions. The method of delivery was wrong however and it cannot ever be allowed to happen again. Yet from the darkest day on the club's history they've grown into the light becoming champions of Portugal again not just once but three times over. On the pitch they can lay claim to being the best footballing side in the country on their day. If we were in 2018 trying to envisage what life would look like in eight years time only days after the attacks I'm sure no one would have guessed to the levels it has grown to. 

It remains a balancing act though. Because not everything that the club does is done well in my opinion and I'm not the only one who thinks like that. Mine are minor grumbles though. The constant churning out of kits every season in collaboration with Nike is quite frankly a piss take especially if you have young children. Every season that passes you have a danger that you water down the matchday experience rather than improve it. Look no one wants to see flares thrown onto the pitch but you can look to Scandinavian countries and their models where they’re pioneering the use of safer flares on matchdays and health and safety is at the forefront. Clubs fans aren't fined thousands of euros and it creates a magical spectacle. Treat football in Portugal how they treat drugs. Don't treat fans as criminals, just ensure that when they're adding the colour and the sound that they're doing so in a way that ensures the health of those attending. Because as we saw in Boavista, it was the Sportinguista's in attendance that night that set the tempo for what happened on the pitch. If I could only watch one game for the rest of my life over and over I think it would have to be that one. 

The moral lesson is a very simple one and that's to think before you act. Use the benefit of hindsight and experience to guide you. Stay off social media if you get particularly aggrieved when Sporting loses which admittedly doesn't happen frequently now. If you're going to criticise, do it constructively and not out of malice. We can all learn from each other. Ultimately, there are times especially if watching at home where the best thing to do is just to switch it off and don't let it ruin your day. It seems fitting given all Nuno Mendes went through with being falsely accused and ending on remand that we finish with him and follow his lead. When the front door closes he leaves Sporting behind until the next time, until then it's all about his family. It's a valuable lesson we can all share from. Obrigado Mustafá, obrigado Sportinguistas. 

By the way if you're reminded of the last ever episode of the Sopranos then I can't say I blame you. Just know the hours of work and research that went into these two series. Had I known where it was going to end then I can promise you I'd have never started. It has consumed so many hours of my time and way more than it took you to read so genuinely…

Thank you for reading. 

Like the famous old cartoons used to say - That's all folks!