Benfica wants to increase the sentences of Francisco J. Marques and Diogo Faria

“You don’t have to do everything to win an audience. Nothing is worth winning championships. You shouldn’t just attack your opponent, on and off the field, no matter how loudly the club’s feeling speaks,” lawyers Rui Patricio, João Medeiros and Paulo Zaragoza da Matta begin to write.

Marquez was sentenced to one year and 10 months in prison and Faria to nine months, both suspended, for crimes against a corporate body and aggravated breach of correspondence. They were acquitted of nine crimes.

Contrary to the court’s decision, Benfica understands that Porto employees must be punished for insulting the club in programs in which they limited themselves to making value judgments without presenting facts or disclosing emails.

The lawyers also argue in the 137-page appeal that CM had access to the fact that the accused must be found guilty of committing a crime against a legal person in relation to expressions used in the book “Red Octopus”, such as the following: “The Red Octopus (…) has, for at least the last 15 years, almost completely dominated the Portuguese football (…), distorting the sporting truth of the competition through behind-the-scenes control of the sport.” But the judges considered that this crime could not be committed in writing, only orally.

Finally, Benfica also disputes the acquittal of unauthorized access. The court understood that Francisco J. Marquez and Diogo Faria did not commit this crime, which was committed by recently accused hacker Ruy Pinto. But Clube da Luz has a different understanding: “The defendants knew that they were receiving personal data from third parties that was confidential and protected by law, and yet they chose to search it. The important thing is that they knew that they were accessing personal data without permission,” you can read in the same document.

Julio’s acquittal is not shocking
Benfica did not appeal the acquittal of Julio Magalhães, the former director of Porto Canal, and accepted the arguments of the court, which considered that “the center of responsibility and censure lies not in the management of the channel, but rather in the responsible persons at FCP, who, not only “ “seized the channel for the implementation of club interests, but also deprived the director of functional power.”