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Portuguese candidate withdraws from Executive Committee election |
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July 2, 2000
LUXEMBOURG (AP) - Three days after Portuguese players condemned UEFA after losing their Euro 2000 semifinal on a disputed penalty, Portugal's candidate for a UEFA executive committee position withdrew from the race on Saturday.
Gilberto Parca Madail explained is was because he had too much work to organize the next Euros in 2004 in Portugal. But his decision stunned delegates to the UEFA Congress in Luxembourg.
In other surprises, Italy's long serving executive committee member Antonio Mattarese lost his place on the UEFA executive while Geoff Thompson was voted on to give England its first voice on the committee for four years.
The election gained more importance this time around after events at the Euro 2000 championship, which ends on Sunday with a final between France and Italy in Rotterdam.
The Portuguese team were incensed that the referee awarded France an extra time penalty, converted by Zinedine Zidane for a "golden goal" which put the French into the final and eliminated Portugal.
The Portuguese players accused UEFA of being behind a conspiracy to oust Portugal and make sure France, being World Cup holder and one of the European powerhouses, got into the final.
Although it was clearly a penalty, the Portuguese were furious and defender Abel Xavier, the player who gave away the penalty for handball, was quoted as saying that UEFA had "secret policies" to favor teams from big soccer nations.
"If the same thing had happened inside the French penalty area, the (referee's) decision would have been different," he told reporters on his arrival home in Lisbon.
Madail was initially one of 13 candidates for seven openings on the UEFA executive. His withdrawal, along with that of Welsh delegate Des Shanklin, cut that to 11 and the seven who got seats on the influential committee were Marios Lefkaritis of Cyprus (42 votes), Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, Germany, (40), Mathieu Sprengers, Netherlands, (39), Per Ravn Omdal, Norway, (38), Claude Simonet, France, (31), Thompson (29) and Joseph Mifsud, Malta, (26).
Mattarese, who had been on the UEFA executive for 12 years but remains a FIFA executive committee member, polled 25 votes. Others were missed out were Finland's Pekka Hamalainen and Romania's Mirceu Sandu, both 15 votes, and Dan Tana of Yugoslavia 14.
In elections to the FIFA executive committee, Mifsud lost his place with only 22 votes while the successful four were Angel Villar Llona of Spain (44), Michel D'Hooghe, Belgium (41), Senes Erzik of Turkey (34) and Viacheslav Koloskov of Russia who regained the place he lost two years ago by collecting 28 votes.
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