Pedro Proença, Presidente da Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional, declara hoje ao «Record» (pág. 35) o seguinte:
"A mim interessa-me defender o espetáculo. (...) Enquanto presidente da Liga, tenho é de defender o futebol, os patrocinadores e o nosso talento."
Leia-se nas entrelinhas, faça-se o transfer para o Karatedō e veja-se naquilo em que transformaram o mesmo!...
Deixo-vos com o conteúdo da 2ª Carta Aberta a Thomas Bach da World Karate Campaign:
To Mr Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee
Dear Mr President,
The road to recognition and inclusion in the Olympics is neither easy nor straightforward; nor has it provided the benefits for sport that most athletes had hoped for.
Two years into your presidency it was frustrating to hear that you proudly proclaimed FIFA as the leader or your campaign against match fixing. This was particularly strange, since exactly four weeks after your speech in Sochi, the American FBI revealed the huge corruption scandal in Sepp Blatter’s federation. The recent shocking news concerning the suspension of Mr Lamin Diac over allegations of financial corruption is further evidence that things are very wrong with the sports organisations affiliated to the IOC.
However, Mr President, it would seem that the IOC is no stranger to discrimination: there is documented evidence of the official correspondence between the International Taekwondo Federation and the IOC which clearly shows how the ITF never stood a chance of gaining IOC recognition when its opponent was the World Taekwondo Federation. Mr Un Yong Kim, President of the WTF and right-hand man of Mr Samaranch (one of your predecessors as President of the IOC), not only illegally lobbied for recognition of the WTF but was also jailed for corruption in South Korea. The sport of Taekwondo was greatly damaged by this flawed decision and two decades later, the technical performance of Taekwondo remains compromised, as is the popularity of the sport.
In our first open letter to you we mentioned that we simply did not understand why Mr Samaranch had the legal authority to recognise the WKF as the sole global representative of Karate when there is much official evidence to prove that Karate is a divided sport and thus cannot become an Olympic Sport without its unification.
The WKF’s Congress in Bremen, (November 2014), was one of the darkest days for World Sport. At the opening of the Congress, Mr President, a video showed you directly supporting Mr Antonio Espinos; he has subsequently been found guilty of using power by the CAS. Your support for Mr Espinos reminds everybody of Mr Jacques Rogge’s cynical words when, at the hearings concerned, he defended those embroiled in the Salt Lake City scandal by saying “They were legal and legitimate”.
Mr President, did you know that at the same WKF Congress in Bremen, the WKF passed an undemocratic rule giving the right of congress to its EC members? Consequently, whatever the EC members decide, everyone else must now automatically accept. This is neither impartial nor fair.
Mr President when you were recording that video, were you aware that the WKF has never had a chance to elect a new president? And that Mr Espinos has been leading the WKF since 1998?
Mr President, do you think this lack of transparency is acceptable?
Mr President, have you heard anything regarding the WKF 21.9 statute?
Our campaign, with more than 12,000 Facebook ‘likes' so far, expresses our strong objection to the latest consideration of Tokyo 2020. The WKF does not represent all Karate Sport, only a small part of it. If the IOC seriously intends to support a new demonstration sport that represents Japanese Karate, then it should abide by its requirement of unification and the IOC promise that it is committed to representing all Karate Sport in the Olympic Games.
