In de Carvalho Marques and Others v Portugal, the court considered six applications against Portugal, including one brought by Porto FC over comments published in a club newsletter about the performance of a video assistant referee.

The article criticised referee BP, stating he had had a “career as a referee [which was] full of untenable decisions, and now, as a [VAR], he is following the same shameful path”. It added that BP “seem[ed] to have an issue with impartiality”.

The Portuguese Football Federation’s disciplinary council fined Porto FC €15,300 for offending the “honour and reputation of sporting bodies and their members”. Although Portugal’s Supreme Administrative Court later upheld the sanction, Porto FC argued before Strasbourg that the penalty breached its Article 10 rights.

The ECtHR found in the club’s favour, holding that the remarks were comments on the referee’s professional conduct rather than his private life and were “common in the context of football competitions”. It warned that restrictions on such expression could have a “chilling effect”, even where the fine imposed was relatively moderate.

The court awarded Porto FC €15,300 in damages and €6,465 in costs, with Portugal given three months to pay.

The other five applications, brought by Porto FC, its communications director Francisco José de Carvalho Marques and board president Jorge Nuno Lima Pinto da Costa in relation to similar disciplinary proceedings, were dismissed, with the court finding no Article 10 violations.