Conditioning of refereeing, says Bernardo Ribeiro

Bernardo Ribeiro, director of Record newspaper, accused FC Porto and Benfica of trying to influence the referees in the week of the classic between the two teams. The accusation comes in the context of a message exchange that Ribeiro considered to be "strange things". The director of Record did not specify what those messages were or how they were exchanged. This is not the first time accusations of pressure on refereeing have emerged in Portuguese football, in a context where games between FC Porto and Benfica are traditionally very hard-fought and scrutinized.