Vítor Murta

Vítor Jorge Fonseca Murta was a Portuguese lawyer and football executive who devoted most of his adult life to Boavista Futebol Clube, the black and white chequered club of Porto. A supporter since childhood, a passion he said he inherited from his father, he rose from the stands to the presidency, leading the club from December 2018 to January 2025 and its professional football company, the Boavista SAD, from 2020 to 2024. He died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Leça da Palmeira on 16 October 2026, at the age of 50.

Murta trained in law and built his professional life as a lawyer specialising in tax law. Long before he held office, he was a stand member at the Estádio do Bessa, and Portuguese press accounts recall that he helped Boavista in court without charge during the years when the club was fighting for survival after relegation and heavy debts.

When João Loureiro returned to lead the club in 2013, Murta joined the board as his close collaborator, serving as adjunct director and later as vice president. Boavista was then rebuilding its place in the top flight after years of financial and sporting turmoil. When Loureiro chose not to run again in late 2018, Murta headed the only list in the election of 28 December 2018 and was chosen with 334 of 441 votes cast. He promised a return to the fighting spirit of the club's greatest years and brought in Litos, captain of the side that won the 2000-01 Primeira Liga title, as part of his sporting structure. In an interview at the time he said that a club leader cannot decide only with the heart, and that only those who respect their past can have a promising future.

His presidency was marked by constant financial pressure. In October 2020 the Luxembourg businessman Gérard López acquired control of the Boavista SAD, a move Murta defended as the way to bring back a competitive Boavista without losing its identity, and he became president of the SAD's board. The relationship with the supporters was not always easy: in December 2020 the Panteras Negras supporters' group broke off relations with the board after a poor start to the season. In January 2022 he was re-elected unopposed as club president, pledging to build a pavilion for the club's other sports and saying that without López it would have been very difficult for Boavista to keep its doors open.

His tenure was also shadowed by legal matters. In December 2019 he was one of several people named as arguidos, formal suspects, in a Polícia Judiciária investigation into alleged tax fraud linked to an events company, and in February 2025 the press reported that he and the Boavista SAD would face trial on charges of tax fraud and document forgery. Murta said he was calm and trusted that the truth would be established in court. No verdict had been reported by the time of his death. In July 2025 his home was also among places searched in a separate investigation into the club's finances in 2023 and 2024; the club said at the time that the SAD was the alleged injured party.

On 26 February 2024, after a 0-4 home defeat to Sporting de Braga and protests from fans, Murta announced in the Bessa press room that he would leave the SAD board, saying he had become a destabilising factor because supporters were spending more time addressing him than backing the team. He remained club president until January 2025, when Garrido Pereira was elected to succeed him, as Boavista entered one of the hardest periods in its history.

News of his death on 16 October 2026 brought expressions of grief across Portuguese football. Boavista FC published a note of deep sorrow, the Liga Portugal sent condolences, and the Panteras Negras, the same supporters' group that had once clashed with his board, remembered him as a dignified man, a father, a companion and a friend to others. He lay in state at the mortuary chapel of the parish church of Santo António das Antas in Porto, where his funeral mass was celebrated on 20 October 2026. He is survived by his son, Rodrigo, and by a club community whose colours he wore from childhood to the end.