Portuguese club SL Benfica made history over the weekend with the club’s presidential election drawing more than 85,000 members to the polls, surpassing Barcelona’s 2010 mark of 57,088 voters.
“Benfica is the biggest club in the world,” said José Pereira da Costa, president of the General Assembly, proudly announcing that 58,808 members had voted by 5.15pm on Saturday – numbers that would continue to rise throughout the day before reaching a total of 85,710.
The turnout was so massive that, in terms of sheer numbers, Benfica’s voters exceeded participation in 302 of Portugal’s 308 municipalities during the local elections held just weeks ago, Observador newspaper pointed out. If the club were a municipality, it would rank among the top seven for votes cast, alongside Lisbon, Sintra, Gaia, Porto, Braga, and Cascais. The average participation rate was 55%, the same as in Benfica’s elections. The club’s total even outpaced populous municipalities such as Oeiras (84,000 voters), Matosinhos (83,000), Loures (81,000), and Coimbra (70,000), the paper added.
When the final results were announced on Sunday afternoon, current president and former footballer Rui Costa emerged as the winner with 42.13% of the vote. However, he failed to secure an absolute majority, meaning a second-round runoff will take place on Saturday, November 8, against João Noronha Lopes, who came second with 30.26% of votes.
