Benfica football club has been inundated with requests for free tickets for matches, not from charities and indigent fans but from public servants from tax office staff, government officials and high court judges, according to leaked emails.Júlio Loureiro, a court official, asked for a ticket for a game – also the Lisbon Finance Service and Rita Abreu Lima, the chief of staff of the former Minister of Internal Affairs, Miguel Macedo, emailed for free tickets.
Nuno Salpico, a senior judge involved in a civil process involving Benfica, even asked for sponsorship for a film.
The emails have been made public on the mercadodebenficapolvo.wordpress.com blog and reveal that, in September 2010, Pedro Garcia Correia, a lawyer from Correia, Seara, Caldas, Associados, sent an email to the judge, stating that the lack of communication to date "does not mean your request is forgotten."
That year, Nuno Salpico was the judge in a civil case between Benfica and Britalar, a company owned by the president of Sporting Braga, António Salvador.
The collection of emails does not show what happened to the requests, but reveals that ticket requests are not exclusive to the current government.
In 2011, Diogo Guia, chief of staff of the then Secretary of State for Sports and Youth, Emídio Guerreiro, sent Paulo Gonçalves a request for three tickets for his colleague, Rita Abreu Lima, chief of staff of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Miguel Macedo. The game in question was SL Benfica vs FC Otelul in the Champions League.
Tickets were also asked for by Finance Office # 5 in Lisbon. An email sent on November 28, 2016, by a director Cristina Lopes to Antonio Rafael Rovisco at the club, asking for three tickets for a game with Naples in the Champions League on 6 December 2016.
The current Minister of Finance, Mário Centeno, has been investigated for blagging Benfica tickets but he was not charged with any offence.
