AndIn an interview with Lusa, José Manuel Constantino revisited the controversy surrounding the current Olympic triple jump champion, Nelson Evora, gold medalist in Beijing 2008, and spoke about Pichardo's recent statements to the Record newspaper, in which he expressed his regret. In Portugal, athletics is not appreciated and in it he discusses his dispute with Benfica.
“Having reached this point, my belief is that Pedro Pichardo will leave Portugal. He will not change his nationality – that is my belief, I could be wrong – but he will leave Portugal. Maybe he will look for a club that pays him well.” Because in the meantime the relationship with Benfica is due to the relationship with the Olympic project coordinator [Ana Oliveira]It's the worst possible. They can't see each other. “On Benfica’s part, there was never the ability to overcome this situation.”
Although he believes that the current Olympic triple jump champion “will continue to represent Portugal”, the COP president estimates that the athlete will never lose “a certain mischief, a certain rebelliousness, a certain attitude that says 'I'm Portuguese but there are many who are I didn't want to'.” To be Portuguese'.
In March, Évora said, in an interview with Radio Observador, that Pichardo, a Portuguese of Cuban descent, had been “bought,” raising questions about the speed of his naturalization process (a few months), in contrast to other cases, such as his.
“This led to another very serious problem. As a result of this controversy, there was a change in the position of the Nationality Recognition Services […] Regarding the requirements for granting Portuguese citizenship, when applying the exception system established by law. I do not know if it is a political trend, or if it is of a purely sporting nature, but I read some opinions issued regarding athletes waiting for their naturalization, which is completely ridiculous and completely ignorant.”
Constantinou fears that the controversy surrounding the issue of granting citizenship to Pichardo – which, in his opinion, is happening only because he is an athlete winning a gold medal in a sport in which the country already had an Olympic champion – “has had such political consequences.”
“If this happened to a 200-meter athlete or a decathlete or a pole vaulter, the controversy wouldn't be the same. The controversy is what we know from the circumstances surrounding it, and then also from some of those involved in the clubs that these issues are. I do that all the time, but what it seems to me is, “What I have to alert the country to is the fact that I understand that the decision being adopted regarding granting Portuguese citizenship to people with an extraordinary sporting CV does not contradict this. It benefits us and harms us.”
For the top national sports leader, the political authority now has a “tremendous responsibility” and must explain to the country “why athletes with relevant sports resumes are not given the same credit as others.”
“And I don't even mention the other known ones, because he also attributed to others whose names we don't even know, but the ones I know who don't have any mathematical value on the scale and size of those cases that we just had,” he added, referring specifically to Agate De Souza, Roger Iribarne, and Reinier Mena.
The former, a 23-year-old from Sao Tome, secured the fourth-best world mark this year in the long jump, while Cubans Iribarne and Mina, respectively, achieved the “fifth-best European mark” in the 110m hurdles this year. of the year and the “third best World Championship mark” in the 200 meters in 2022.
“It is considered that these methodological notes are not sufficient to grant a ruling allowing the exclusion of the five years [no processo de naturalização]…. Or in other words, for these athletes to wait five years to represent Portugal is a decision that, from a good point of view, lacks any justification.”
According to the President of the COP, either the political authority will accept this understanding of administrative structures, and in his opinion he is “ignorant in this matter”, because the person who will have to give an opinion is the Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth (IPDJ) – an entity that can evaluate whether athletes have sporting value Or not – or “change this problem.”
He added: “I have a perception – I do not have any confirmed data – that there is some fear of addressing this issue, at the risk of being accused of conducting naturalization operations for purely opportunistic and sporting reasons.”
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