APCVD challenges the creation of a national security programme

Dirigents of football associations today challenged entities, government, security forces and the Portuguese Football Federation to create a national security program for sports events.

“ The role of a delegate should be practical in all competitions and there should be a national security program for non-professional sports events ", defended the president of the District Association of Football Viana do Castelo.

Ricardo Felgueiras considered that this program should “involve the Portuguese Football Federation, the Government, district associations and security agents for continuous and aligned training” throughout the country.

He spoke on the panel about “The challenges of security in non-professional competitions” during the fourth edition of the S4 – International Congress Safety, Security, Service at Sports Events (protection, security, and hosting at sporting events, free translation), which ends today in Viseu, organized by the Authority for the Prevention and Combating Violence Sport (APCUD).

A panel that also featured the participation of the president of the National Association of Football Delegates (ANDF), Paulo Renato, the Security Manager of Leça Futebol Clube, Paulo Silva, and the commander of the Detachment of Ovar, of the Territorial Command of Aveiro, of the Republican National Guard (GNR), Telmo Gomes.

With the Secretary of State for Sport, Pedro Dias, sitting in the audience, Ricardo Felgueiras challenged the government to “finance this program, since it saved some money, because there was no security in much of the training games”.

The remaining participants also warned of the “need to train the younger ones, especially in training games, not only athletes but fans, who are mostly parents”.

“ One of the big problems is the parents, because most are convinced that they have a Ronaldo at home and this often becomes a problem”, said Paulo Silva.

This Leça manager challenged the clubs to “report at the end of each game so that, in the preparation of the next game, the clubs know what happened in the last challenge and which ones have the most emotional fans/parents”.

“ In a few months we would have a portrait of the training games and security planning and their organization would be more reliable to achieve”, he said.

GNR commander Telmo Gomes took advantage of his parents' leave to challenge the creation of campaigns, such as road prevention or recycling.

“ And this could be part of or involve the Ministry of Education, because the children of training today are the professional athletes, the fans and the leaders of tomorrow and, if we start working now, within 10 to 15 years we can have a different mentality and behavior in sports events ", defended the captain.