From referee to business manager – Pedro Proença, the man who cleaned up the finances of Portugal’s Professional Football League

A decade ago, Portugal’s Professional Football League was on the brink of bankruptcy – rudderless and divided. Ten years later, celebrity referee Pedro Proença arrived and turned the ship around, getting the company out of debt, putting it on the path to profit, building a brand with plans for internationalisation as business leaders at the International Club of Portugal discovered on Wednesday.

Text: Chris Graeme Photos: ICPT

Pedro Proença is somewhat of a Portuguese icon in the world of football, once one of the country’s and Europe’s most celebrated referees, and now a top-level business manager both in Portuguese football and in bi-lateral trade.

With a brilliant career, Proença is not only President of the Football League of Portugal and President of the European Leagues which represents 1000 clubs in 37 professional football leagues and associations of clubs in 31 countries across Europe; he is also a member of the executive committee of UEFA.

Aged 53 and from Lisbon, he was elected President of the League of Portugal in 2015, and was reelected in 2019 and again in June, 2023.

His professional career has taken the form of a referee at the highest level, considered the best referee in the world by the IFFHS in 2012 – the year in which he refereed the finals of both the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA European Championship, being the first to ever do so.

In 2006-2007 he was named as the ‘Portuguese Referee of the Year’ and he was promoted to the UEFA’s Elite category at the start of the 2009-10 season.

In June 2011, he was named as ‘Best Referee’ for the 2010-2011 season by the Football Federation of Portugal before retiring from refereeing in 2015.

Since retirement from active football, Pedro Proença has had a successful career as an insolvency administrator, and in 2023 he was reelected as general vice-president of the Portuguese Business Confederation, a post he had held since 2020.

That same year he became the president of the Arab-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce, and is also an advisory member to the board of the Porto and North of Portugal Tourism Board.

Pedro Proença was the illustrious speaker at a luncheon organised by the International Club of Portugal on Wednesday at the Lisbon Sheraton & Spa hotel, in which he emphasised the importance football has to the Portuguese economy as a business sector.

Contributing towards the Portuguese economy

The president of the Portuguese Professional Football League kicked off with a few facts and figures about the sector.

The football sector in Portugal is a small but not insignificant driver of the economy, and last season brought in revenues of €987 million, contributing to more than €667 million to Portugal’s GDP according to figures from the Football League of Portugal for 2023, which was an increase of 8% on 2022, representing 0.26% of national wealth.

And football clubs as companies that compete in the I and II Leagues paid €228 million in taxes for the last season, 78% of which was IRS corporation tax and Social Security contributions.

In 2023, the football sector also employed 3,500 people with the Premier League responsible for 76% of these jobs, with a total of 2,682 employed, of which 930 are players, 257 are trainers, and 1,473 are support staff in areas such as administration and management.

The football player transfer market alone raked in €319 million from all Portuguese football clubs from the transfer of 277 Premier League players for overseas championship games.

Centralised TV rights

The centralisation of TV coverage and broadcasting rights in Portugal, Pedro Proença said, will be a very important step for the growth of the Portuguese football market.

TV coverage and broadcasting rights currently correspond to around 20% of the sector, albeit concentrated on three clubs, contributing towards a better product with added value for the business.

It has been responsible for a more equitable distribution between the clubs according to a study from EY Portugal from which the aforementioned figures have been taken.

“We believe in the centralisation of TV rights, and this does not just mean wealth generation. It has not been possible to create and export a small or medium-size league, like ours. “It is like being on a motorway, only Cyprus and us are going in the opposite direction,” he said, referring to Portugal and Cyprus as being the only two countries which did not have centralised TV rights.

And the centralisation of TV rights was much more than about wealth creation, it was about creating a brand.

It was the power to be able to create a policy of internationalisation with 306 games, and not just 17 games from a “particular club that thinks it is worth more than a League and this is completely wrong”, he said, firing broadside against what can only have been the management of Benfica Football Club.

“We want to create a brand, internationalise our League with 306 games and not with 17 games from one club that thinks it stands alone and that it is worth more than the rest of the League. Only five clubs in the world have that luxury to act without their leagues, and unfortunately, not one of them is Portuguese,” he said.

Inheriting a League in financial trouble

At the lunch, which was packed to the rafters with business leaders and press, in second visit to the ICPT – the last was seven years ago – Proença admitted that at that time “times were extremely difficult”.

This was because the Portuguese Professional Football League was in a “poor economic and financial state, with a lack of direction and focus in terms of its mission, goals and objectives”, he said

“We wanted to change things and turn the ship around, and make a difference to an activity which is primarily about leisure, and that’s how it should be seen, and I am always careful to point that out to our shareholders and stakeholders at the League of Portugal. (There are 24 football clubs that comprise the League)

“We are leading a business and industry, which happens to be football, (a product) that lasts 90 minutes a game, plays 11 a side, but as for the rest, we are participating in a business in common and it should be treated as such,” he added.

“It is an industry that represents almost 0.3% of GDP, contributes over €200 million in taxes, represents over €600 million in annual revenues, and is a business that has to be treated as any other business,” stressed the president of the League of Portugal.

Pedro Proença said that Portuguese football was an industry that was “constantly producing talent”, but the football boss painted a bleak picture of the state of the League 10 years ago.

“When we arrived at the League of Portugal in 2015, it was a business without direction, on the brink of bankruptcy, with an amateur management, without partners or credibility, completely divided, and one which did not have a sustainable business model for the future.”

“It was after a report from Deloitte that we sought to turn the ship around with the clubs, with a new completely business focused model – much of which many people don’t realise and think it’s just a 90-minutes game and TV channels – but the League has a completely business-orientated ecosystem and equity”, he stressed.

Proença explained how they had spearheaded its economic and financial recovery, a process which had been extremely tough, by creating a brand with competitive models, centralising and bringing financial value to the brands, as well as getting the presidents of the clubs on board.

The League was also recognised in international terms. “For the first time we have an executive board that has taken on the responsibility of an international management body in Portugal and we are the first league in the world to obtain an anti-corruption quality certification”, he revealed.

Standing to head the Portuguese Football Federation?

Pedro Proença declined to say if he would stand to head the Portuguese Football Federation but said he would definitely be “of service to football” in some capacity.

“I will definitely be available to serve football and that’s quite clear to me. I’ve got nothing further to say at this point. I am the President of the European League, and a member of the Executive Committee of UEFA and so for now I’m fulfilling my terms,” he told journalists.

Pedro Proença has been flagged up as one of the possible candidates to succeed Fernando Gomes at the Portuguese Football Federation. And said that that when the right time arose he would discuss the matter.

“Obviously, I have a commitment with the clubs right now. The clubs have given me and the directors of the League a mandate that we have on the table, and we will give an answer on this subject when the time is right,” he concluded.