João Loureiro
João Eduardo Pinto de Loureiro (Porto, Portugal, 9 October 1963) is the president (chairman) of the Portuguese football club Boavista FC, since 2 January 2013. He had previously held the office between 1997 and 2007, when he was the most successful President of Boavista's history: he was the youngest football president to be champion ever in Portugal (in the 2000-2001 season), the year in which he was considered the best chairman of Portugal by the newspaper Record. He also won the Honour Panther prize and the Gold Panther prize. During his mandates as President (Chairman) of Boavista FC, the club won all the Portuguese competitions of professional football at the time (Premier League of Portugal, Cup of Portugal and Supercup of Portugal), as well as all the national competitions u-19. Internationally, the club participated three times in the UEFA Champions League and went to the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup. Also, it was during his mandate that the modern and sophisticated stadium Estádio do Bessa Século XXI was built; it has 30,000 seats and was the location of several matches for the 2004 UEFA European Championship.
In 2008, he was suspended by the Portuguese league in relation to a match-fixing scandal - the Apito Dourado scandal,[1] of which he was completely rehabilitated by the official courts. He was later sentenced to two years of suspension, for embezzlement charges,[2] but he went to the superior courts proving that all the fiscal debts of the process were part of an agreement signed with the Portuguese state of which he paid all the installments during his presidency. In December 2011, the Superior Court of Porto sentenced in favour of João Loureiro and revogated totally the previous decision.
In January 2013, he was again elected President (Chairman) of Boavista FC, after having been asked to be back by thousands of members of the club. After being elected, Boavista achieved on 29 June 2013 the right to be back to the Portuguese Premier League in 2014. He demanded a compensation from the Portuguese Footbal Federation for all damages the decision to relegate the club to the second division caused. Also, he negotiated a Special Revitalization Procedure, which was achieved by an agreement with the creditors, that made the global debt amount of the club to be reduced from 65 Million Euros to 32 Million Euros, on 4 September 2013, in what was seen as an historical moment for Boavista. Afterwards, in February 2014, Boavista also achieved a historic SIREVE (Companies' Recovery System through Extrajudicial Agreements) with its creditors. The club has participated with success in the portuguese premier league in the seasons 2014/2015 and 2015/2016.
João Loureiro is a lawyer, business executive and author and was the vocalist and leader of the popular Portuguese dance-pop band BAN during the 1980s and early 1990s, with several hits, like 'Irreal Social', 'Mundo de Aventuras' and 'Dias Atlânticos', recently considered one of the most important in Portuguese modern music. They released in 2010 an album, "Dansity", very well accepted by the specialized critics.
He was also the President of the Young Lawiers Association Assembly. In 1998, he was elected deputy for the Portuguese Parliament in the lists of the party PSD. Nowadays he works in International Consultancy. His father Valentim Loureiro, a military Major, is a famous politician, mayor, businessman and also a former chairman of Boavista FC.