"I have no doubt that Artur Soares Dias and, of course, his team and Tiago [Martins] himself can be in the competition dreaming of always reaching the end," said the APAF leader, in statements to the Lusa agency.

Noting that the presence of Portuguese refereeing representatives in the most advanced stages of the competition will always be "conditioned by the performance" of the Portuguese team, Gonçalves nevertheless highlighted their "individual quality", as well as "the age, experience and games they have played in international competitions" to justify the opinion.

He assumed that "it is a source of pride for national refereeing, not only for these four referees who were nominated", but also for "the entire structure and all the colleagues who work with them on a daily basis".

"This nomination is also a little bit of everyone else who works daily with these four colleagues who were [nominated], Artur [Soares Dias], Tiago [Martins], Pedro Ribeiro and Paulo Soares. It is a clear sign that they trust Portuguese referees," the leader stressed.

Also João Dias, appointed to the referee training functions, "is in an excellent moment of form" and can, according to Luciano Gonçalves, "legitimately think about being part of the group of the best referees at European level in the coming years".

On the other hand, assuming the goal of having Portuguese referees in all the final stages of international senior football team competitions was one of the points of Luciano Gonçalves' electoral program, recently re-elected for a third term at APAF.

In this sense, the nominations of Portuguese referees for Euro2024 are, "without a doubt, a good indicator".

"We must continue to work because, effectively, we have a lot of quality in refereeing and, the more conditions we can give our referees, the better the results will be, absolutely for sure," concluded the APAF president.

Soares Dias, 44, from the Porto association, is on the list of 18 referees nominated by UEFA for Euro2024, which will be played in Germany, between June 14 and July 14, becoming the second Portuguese 'judge' to 'repeat' in the final stages, after José Rosa Santos.

António Garrido, in 1980, was the first Portuguese in a European final stage, followed by Rosa Santos, in 1988 and 1992, Vítor Pereira, in 2000, Lucílio Baptista, in 2004, and Pedro Proença, in 2012.

Tiago Martins, from the Lisbon association and 43 years old, joins the restricted list of Portuguese referees in Europeans, but as one of the 20 VARs, as happened with João Pinheiro at Euro2020.

Also nominated for Euro2024 was João Dias, responsible for training national referees, who will perform the same functions during the competition.

Read Also: Fontelas Gomes satisfied with the presence of Portuguese refereeing at Euro'2024 (Portuguese version)

Read Also: Artur Soares Dias repeats presence at the Euro, Tiago Martins in debut (Portuguese version)