Football
Football is the most popular sport in Portugal and the Primeira Liga is the most important sports championship, where the top teams earn a place in the most demanding and profitable European football competitions, the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League. The club's football team has won 18 national championship titles, 15 national cups and the former Cup Winners' Cup in 1964. In the late 2000s, Sporting has failed to win a championship but consistently finished second place behind Porto and ahead of Benfica.
Sporting has been a major contender in the Primeira Liga since its inception. The club's football department has developed an increasingly professionalized profile which operates in an increasingly competitive environment in both Portugal and Europe. In 1998, the football department of the club was reorganized into a company and issued stock on the market. Since then, Sporting – Sociedade Desportiva de Futebol, S.A.D., is a publicly traded company which is listed on the Euronext Lisbon stock exchange.
Read more about this topic: Sporting Clube De Portugal
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“Idon’t enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people’s amusement. I enjoy it if I’m being paid a lot for it.”
—David Storey (b. 1933)
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)