The President of the Republic, speaking at a meeting of the Portuguese Olympic Committee at a restaurant in Lisbon where he awarded medals to athletes, mentioned that by 2028 he will be “a free man” and will experience the Olympic Games in a different way.
“I will be a guest professor in California and, therefore, it combines the useful with the pleasant, which is to be there teaching, invited, in the year 2028 and, as you can imagine, it is a unique and privileged condition to see more events and further accompany the triumphs of our athletes,” he stated.
In his speech, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa considered the 2028 Olympic Games “a bet” by the PSD/CDS-PP Government and expressed the expectation that whoever succeeds him as head of state after March 9, next year, will witness “an enormous leap in the Olympic presence” of Portugal.
The head of state mentioned that he has discussed this matter with the Prime Minister in their weekly meetings and pointed to the “enthusiasm” of Luís Montenegro with “the bet on the 2028 Olympic Games” as the “strongest” sign that “he wants to last at least four years.”
“A bet, we cannot say it is the first nor the only one, other governments have had it, to be fair. But the fact is that it is an important bet, at a time when the country has funds it did not have in the past,” he added.
According to the President of the Republic, the government plans to use these funds to make significant strides in “infrastructure, the conditions provided to athletes, the stimulation of essential federations, and support to clubs for 2028.”
