Rui Costa destroyed Benitez and became the 34th President of Benfica

The former club player won an impressive electoral victory, which resulted in 40,085 members in the Luz ballot box (equivalent to 808,298 votes), surpassing the record set last year. The official results were released after 3:30 pm on Sunday following a recount.

Rui Costa is the new leader of the Benfica universe, with a spectacular victory (84.5%, corresponding to 33,795 votes and 682,841,000 votes) over Francisco Benitez (12.2%, 5043 votes, equivalent to 98,923 votes) in the most controversial election in club history … The former conductor Luz was approved by the overwhelming majority of partners, replacing Luis Filipe Vieira in the Directorate and, in fact, in the SAD team. Empty or zero votes will reach 3.3%.

In 117 years of history, Benfica has never lived a day like this. Long before late at night, when the vote count ended at 3.30 am, after the ballot count was recounted in Luza.

The race between Rui Costa and Francisco Benitez for the presidency led to the largest electoral event of all time, in which 40,115 members took part.out of 115,681, using his right to vote and surpassing the record set last October (38,102) when Luis Filipe Vieira defeated João Noronha Lopes and Rui Gomes da Silva. The fact that the ballot was carried out only in paper format and not in electronic version, together with the huge turnout, delayed the counting of votes and meant that the results were only known in the early hours of this Sunday.

With 25 polling stations scattered across the country, the focus was naturally on Pavilion 2 of the Estádio da Luz, and even before the polling stations opened, it was possible to see the day become historic. It was not yet eight in the morning, and hundreds of people were already lining up, and the script continued for most of the day.

List B rejects Vieira

The day passed with little or no incident, with the exception of a period of heightened tension when the former president voted (see next page). The fact that Luis Filipe Vieira announced his voice (Rui Costa) while still on the premises made List B come up with a statement. “To refute the statements of the ex-president of the Council and yet the partner, stressing that he had just seriously violated Art. 30, No. 2, Regulations on elections ”- you can read it. The article in question states that partners cannot indicate the direction of voting within a radius of 200 meters. Comedian Ricardo Araujo Pereira suggested that he voted for Benitez in the vicinity of the pavilion, and was widely criticized.

resignation and succession

After the resignation of Luis Filipe Vieira from a position he held for 18 years, following his arrest in the red card process, the “vice” Rui Costa took the interim seat of the president and asked for an election in which he found that the movement was a competition. Benfica “. A group of members, led by Francisco Benitez, accused the former 10th club member of turning a blind eye to Vieira’s leadership and presenting himself as an alternative, obstructing a single-run election.