João Eduardo Pinto de Loureiro was the president of the board of the Portuguese football clubBoavista FC, from 2 January 2013 until 28 December 2018. Now he is the President of the General Council of the club. He had previously held the office between 1997 and 2007, when he was the most successful president of the board of Boavista's history: he was the youngest football president to be champion ever in Portugal, 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 of Boavista FC, the club won all the Portuguese competitions of professional football at the time, as well as all the national competitions u-19, and was twice Vice-Champion of Portugal. 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, of which he was completely rehabilitated by the official courts. He was later sentenced to two years of suspension, for embezzlement charges, in a process related to the club 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 the club paid and honoured all the installments during his presidency, and that ulterior presidents did not honour. In December 2011, the Superior Court of Porto sentenced in favour of João Loureiro and revogated totally the previous decisions. In January 2013, he was again elected President 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 Football 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 with its creditors. The club has participated with success in the Portuguese premier league in the seasons 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. In the season 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 the objectives were once again achieved, and Boavista finished in the 9th and 8th place in the main Portuguese league. After having renegotiated and restructured once again and definitely all the debts of the club by a PER Revitalization procedure, and at the end of his second mandate, he decided to not be recandidate for a new mandate as President of the Board, and was invited and elected anyway to be the President of the General Council of Boavista for the mandate 2019/2021. João Loureiro is a lawyer business executive and author and vocalist and leader of the very 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 ever in the 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, as well as an Officer in the Portuguese Army. In 1998, he was elected deputy for the Portuguese Parliament in the lists of the party PSD. Nowadays he works in International Consultancy. João Loureiro is married since 1988 with his wife Maria do Rosário and has two sons and two daughters. His father Valentim Loureiro, a military Major, is a politician, mayor, businessman and also a former very successful chairman of Boavista FC.
