What do The Offside and Boavista FC Have In Common?

By: Greg | April 10th, 2008

bfc If you guessed “They both make you toil away in the world of football for no pay,” then you’re the winner, winner, galinha dinner.

While there doesn’t seem to be any impending revolt for past due wages here on The Offside (those MLS jerks keep voting the strike down), Boavista’s players are now promising to strike beginning in the 27th Jornada, which takes place on April 20th. Due to a binding agreement between the team and its players, the strike can not take place until five days after the second month of wages is in arrears. Therefore, having an anniversary date on the 8th and a match that takes place less than five days from that date (April 12) means that Boavista will have to wait until next week to have their strike be recognized as legitimate.

Boavista actually owe its players 60% of December 2007’s wages as well as the full amount due them from February and March of this year. Many feel that the present financial crisis is down to poor planning (duh) as well as the assload of cashish they dropped on construction / modification of the Estádio do Bessa XXI which featured in the 2004 Euro hosted by Portugal. Without readily available dough, they were forced to make due and could not hire further upper level talent.

This is a particularly sad development not only because the team are in the top flight of Portuguese football, but also because Boavista have a fantastic fan following and are incidentally the last team to win the Portuguese SuperLiga (2000/01) not named Porto, Sporting, or Benfica. In spite of their lack of pay, the players at least have managed a moderately respectable 10th place out of 16 and are within five points of sixth place Belenenses. If I weren’t being paid, you’d have a tough time getting me to give even one iota of effort, forget about putting together a serviceable season.

Things will only get worse, however, as Boavista are the other team (Porto and Pinto da Costa being the most prestigious) featured prominently in the Golden Whistle scandal and probably stand to take the majority of the fall for the whole situation. Relegation and further punishments have been thrown around, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the team ends up relegated simply by default, even if the players do decide to take the last few weeks of the season off.

See you a little later for a quick hit recap of the Sporting - Rangers UEFA Cup 2nd leg. Until then, you can read my preview of the match from yesterday and try to keep it oh so real. If you can not, then keep it regular. Thank you.