Five more players who represented Portimonese in 2025/26 were suspended for illegal betting, the FPF Discipline Board announced.
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09/11/2026
by
Lusa
Mais five players who represented in 2025/26 the Portimonense club, the main district level of the Algarve Football Association, were suspended for illegal betting, announced today the Council of Discipline (CD) of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF).
According to the two judgments of the non-professional section, dated Friday, the advanced Guinean Abulai Dabó was subject to the heaviest penalty, receiving six months of suspension and 1,836 euros fine.
The average Tomás Cintra was sentenced to four months of detention, plus a fine of EUR 1,071, while the same centercamper Daniel Cunha has three months of sentence, plus EUR 1,020.
The central defense Valter Barros, with three months and 15 days of suspension and 714 euros of fine, and the medium Afonso Loja, target of two months and 15 days and 1,071 euros, were also punished by the FPF CD, which also sanctioned Rodrigo Silva and Ione Dragnev, both left sides, and the medium Francisco Costa with fines of 1.428, 918 and 918 euros respectively.
The body filed the case on the Cape Verdean average international Sérgio Semedo, and the decisions are subject to appeal to the FPF Board of Justice or the Arbitral Court of Sport (TAD).
The facts date back to the last time, when the Portimonese club was demoted to district echelons, being 12th and pre-penultimate ranked from the D Series of the Championship of Portugal (CP), fourth national division.
Infringements of Article 142 of the FPF Discipline Regulation relating to the handling of games and anti-sporting bets are concerned.
“ A player who makes or for his benefit has a sports bet on the incidence or result of official gambling, regardless of the location of his/her performance, is sanctioned with a fine between 10 and 50 units of account. When the bet was held in game or competition in which the player participates or is involved, the player is still sanctioned with suspension between six months and three years”, expressed.
Punished footballers held thousands of bets related to the CP, as well as other national and Portuguese main team matches, having focused some of this activity on matches of the Portimonese club, whose results, including even losses, even predicted.
On Wednesday, the FPF CD had already convicted five other athletes who represented the Algarves in 2025/26, applying fines from 306 to 1,275 euros, and then Captain Miguel Ângelo was cumulatively suspended for four months, with Gonçalo Lopes and Gonçalo Correia facing two months and 15 days and 45 days, respectively.
The Portable Club suspended preventively in September players for allegations of illegal betting, without detailing how many were involved in the complaint, which motivated lawsuits by the FPF CD.
For the same reasons, and after another complaint, the agency punished Maria Pereira, wing of the women's futsal team of the national champion Benfica, with a fine of 714 euros, in a decision made on Friday and released today.
In the last season, the best scorer of the 2026/27 edition of the championship made at least 23 bets on meetings of the I Football League and at least four in matches of the ‘AA’ male and female selections of Portugal of the same modality, acting “convinced that it was not prevented from making such bets, for not focusing on futsal games”.
Maria Pereira, 30 years old and with 63 internationalizations and 14 goals for the main Portuguese selection, confessed in full to having held the bets of which she was accused, penitent for the performance and made excuses.