Estrela da Amadora seeks 20 million pardon to avoid Liga exclusion due to financial difficulties and international creditor pressures. The club is requesting a 20 million euro pardon to avoid exclusion from professional competitions. Estrela da Amadora is facing financial difficulties due to high investments and international creditor pressures. The club is requesting creditors to forgive 90% of its debt, which exceeds 25 million euros. In the recovery plan submitted to the Sintra court this week, the emblem dramatizes its situation: without this oxygen balloon, it may be excluded from professional competitions. CFEA – Club Football Estrela, SAD argues that it is in a difficult economic situation, without cash to face its responsibilities within the deadlines, but believes it is still in a recoverable situation. According to the PER, this framework of difficulties was due not only to high investments in the stadium (it bought the venue in 2023 for 2.6 million euros) and the reinforcement of the team, but also to international football creditors. It even speaks of an “aggressive and short-term claim of significant materiality” from these creditors who “put at risk the maintenance of sports competitions and the renewal of the team”. One of these creditors is Flamengo. The Brazilian club claims 5.7 million euros from Estrela and has already taken action in Portuguese courts. Estrela says it may be prevented from registering players with FIFA, which would prevent it from being licensed by the Portuguese Football League to participate in professional competitions. The PER aims to respond to all this: “It functions, in this context, as a stabilization instrument that constitutes a formal agreement to defer payments and subsequent regularization, which is recognized by sports regulatory regimes (UEFA and Liga Portugal) as a basis for considering that there is no basis for the application of sanctions”. Refounded in 2011, after the bankruptcy of the historic emblem two years earlier, the ‘new’ Estrela is preparing for its fourth consecutive season in the top tier of Portuguese football.