Another hearing in the trial of the so-called “e-mails case”, which will be held at the Central Criminal Court in Lisbon. This morning he was heard via video by former referee Carlos Duarte, as a witness in the defense of Diogo Faria, one of the defendants in the case, along with Francisco J. Marquez and Julio Magalhaes.
For Carlos Duarte, “the e-mails came to reveal that mathematical truth is in question.” I only saw what was reproduced by the press and the Porto channel, but I didn’t want to believe some of the things I saw. It’s a breakdown of a lot of things in arbitration. Some agents’ power over arbitration is real. We all want to believe that what happens on the field is the result of sporting truth and is not being manipulated by certain agents, but emails have revealed that sporting truth has been questioned by certain agents. And I’ve never heard anyone say the emails are fake, and a lot of what was there coincided with the truth,” he told the panel of judges.
The former referee, who is also a lawyer, highlighted: «It was a special surprise and astonishment, because we were sure, with the spread of emails, of behavior that we were condemning and repudiating. The position of some leaders turned out to be ridiculous. The people who declared the golden whistle the biggest scandal in Portuguese football are now the same people involved in this case.”
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