PORTUGAL Trends and Developments Contributed by: Miguel Santos Almeida, Maria Novo Baptista, João Saúde and Julieta Ricciardi, Sérvulo & Associados
Expansion of Collective Sport Modalities List A new administrative order (Despacho 14366/2025, 3 Dec 2025) updated the official list of recognised collective sports disciplines for purposes of public policy and federation recognition. Notably, ultimate frisbee was added to the list of recognised collective sports alongside traditional activities such as football, basketball and volleyball, reflecting legal recognition of emerging sports. This administrative change has implications for funding eligibility, federation status and official sport development programmes. Sports Integrity Although enacted in January 2024, the law establish - ing the legal regime for sporting integrity and combat - ing unsporting conduct continued to underpin legal responses to corruption, match fixing and fraudulent betting in 2025. It harmonises criminal and disciplinary rules and introduces frameworks for national oversight of competition integrity. This regime remains critical in 2026 as enforcement actions increasingly intersect with criminal investigations and regulatory sanctions. Financing and Public Security at Sporting Events In March 2025, Decree-Law No 25/2025 introduced amendments to the legal framework governing the distribution of revenues from social betting and the policing of sports events. It revised the financial distri - bution of net results from social gaming (operated by Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa) and updated responsibilities for policing costs at sports events. These changes affect how policing costs are funded and how revenues linked to gaming are allocated, with direct impact on public budgets and event organisers. Esports Esports was a trending topic in Portugal during 2025, with several politic parties discussing the need to reg - ulate esports and to recognise it as a sport. Esports in Portugal has undergone an exponential evolution in recent years, with the emergence of numerous ath - letes, clubs, coaches, event organisers, specialised media, several enthusiast communities, and several national and international competitions and events. In fact, Portuguese players are at 22nd place in the earnings ranking.
Portugal was one of the first countries to have a foot - ball federation embrace an esports section in 2017. The esports section of the Portuguese Football Fed - eration counts alongside football teams licensed for online competitions but also includes the presence of clubs specifically created for online competitions. In 2018, one of the first esports associations in Portu - gal was created – the Portuguese Federation of Elec - tronic Sports. Despite the exponential development of the economy of esports in Portugal, it is still a severely underregu - As with other country members of the EU and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Portuguese juris - diction allows for exploitation of patents, trade marks, merchandising, copyrights, broadcasting rights, spon - sorship and image rights. The owner of the above-mentioned rights var - ies depending on the type of sport in question. For example, in futsal and hockey, the respective sports federations are the exclusive owners of the merchan - dising, copyrights, broadcasting rights, sponsorship and image rights of all matches played in the vari - ous competitions. Therefore, the commercialisation of these rights is undertaken by the sports federations, which can transfer or license the rights through writ - ten agreements. lated sector of the sports industry. Commercialisation of Sports Events Conversely, in football, the ownership of television and multimedia broadcasting rights for matches in the first and second national leagues for men’s football belongs to the sports clubs or sports companies who participate in these competitions. Although currently Portuguese sports clubs in professional competitions sell these rights individually, as of the 2028/2029 sports season, such rights will have to be jointly sold in terms to be defined by the Portuguese Football Federation by the end of the 2025/2026 sports season, subject to approval by the Portuguese Competition Authority, as set out in Decree-Law No 22-B/2021 of March 22nd. Following the entry into force of Decree-Law No 22-B/2021, the Portuguese League created Liga Cen -
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