The Statutory Committee submits a proposal to the Benfica General Assembly that is at odds with the management’s opinion.

Benfica’s charter review committee asked the chairman of the club’s General Assembly to include his proposal in Saturday’s extraordinary general meeting at several different stages of the board.

For a Commission that includes Bagan Felix, João Pinheiro or Raquel Vaz Pinto, there are points that are completely at odds with those proposed by the Council, chaired by Rui Costa, which accepted part of the proposal but retained some fundamental differences.

In a proposal submitted by Fernando Siré and to be presented at the Extraordinary General Assembly, the Commission presents 18 controversial points that it believes should be resolved by Benfica’s partners at a meeting whose agenda calls for “presentation, discussion and voting on the proposed methodology for discussing and voting on proposed changes to the charter” and “adopting the proposed changes.”

“The management decided to publish what its proposal for revising the charter would be, which, in fact, has, let’s say, 85 to 90% of the basis that was the commission’s proposal, but made some changes that, in our opinion,” perspective , distorts the spirit of the committee for the revision of the charter,” João Pinheiro, one of the signatories of the Commission, began explaining to the Lusa agency.

João Pinheiro listed the significant points that diverge and are expected to be conciliatory, given that Benfica included one of its directors, Jaime Antunes, on the supervisory committee.

For signatories, one of the key points is whether the partners recognize that management has “the central authority to sell or encumber assets, be it furniture, real estate or even financial assets in the companies, namely Benfica SAD.”

“This is a discrepancy between the management’s proposal, which defends this, and ours, which retained the right of the General Assembly to dispose of Benfica’s assets, which has always been the case historically, and in most associations the corresponding decisions are always taken. in GA,” explained João Pinheiro.

In its disagreement with management, the Committee also defends what it understands to be the issue of transparency, the selection by the Remuneration Committee partners of members of management on an exclusive basis, avoiding the promiscuity that could extend to management. from SAD.

“This historic leap in remuneration for entity owners had a counterpart that was also contained in the proposal, namely increased liability, including disciplinary and criminal liability, for entity owners,” he added.

Among other points, one can note the impossibility of club employees running for management bodies in the sense of a clear division of functions: “either they are candidates for the heads of management bodies and, therefore, perform elected functions, or they are workers or managers and, therefore, “I have another type of actions and responsibilities,” he said, adding that this is a scenario to avoid the club being “imprisoned by structure.”

Regarding voting, he proposes a new category for intermediate members (25 votes), but maintaining a hierarchy based on seniority, although he believes that the Benfica Chambers should also have votes based on the years of their existence, rather than a larger number right at the foundation.

It also provides for the “strengthening of the status of relevant partners”, namely the ability to stand for corporate bodies or demand general meetings, “limiting the presentation of negative balance forecasts” in annual financial statements and “protection of physical voting in the ballot box as a guarantee of the authenticity of the electronic ballot.”

The Management Commission’s Review Commission proposal was presented in March 2022 and Benfica published its version covering part of the proposal in June 2023, with a first general meeting scheduled for Saturday to approve the discussion and voting methodology. according to suggestions.