World Heritage (of football)

The candidacy of the Bastioned Fortresses of Raia for World Heritage status was rejected for the fourth consecutive time. The applications lack value, lack of preparation or is the problem in the arbitration?

These days, Culture, Youth and Sport They are the center of attention for the Portuguese. Here, we chose the 7 New Wonders of Portugal, we celebrate Rock in Rio, we accompany our artists at the Venice Biennale and we support our National Team at the World Cup. Our Minister has no rest.

For now, however, enthusiasm is contained. Our team’s kickoff to the World Cup was shaky, the food at Rock in Rio was disappointing and we also recorded some failures in our World Heritage Site.

In fact, it was recent news about a new rejection of our applications a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The news began to generate some apprehension, mainly due to the fact that, since 2019, no Portuguese proposal was approved by UNESCO.

The most recent rejection was the candidacy of (Almeida, Elvas, Marvão and Valença), the only one from Portugal under analysis and which, by fourth time in a row, it was refused.

According to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which evaluates the nominations, they remain not adequately substantiate its “Outstanding Universal Value”.

These applications are prepared by each of the proponentscoordinated by IP Cultural Heritage and monitored by the UNESCO National Commission, supervised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We therefore accept as truththat only applications that are, in fact, well prepared, substantiated and structured are submitted to the World Committee.

According to the news published, it must also be requested that, in a new submission, they be documented «the attributes of each party components, in terms of location, topography, typology, state of conservation, authenticity and integrity».

Stay now my first question: How is it possible that a proposal worked on at the highest level, involving proposing entities, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, could be insufficiently informed, for example, in terms of describing the state of conservation?

Being my work area, I don’t understand as a parameter as important as this, may be insufficiently described.

Now, with these four rejections, it therefore seems clear to me that we will be facing one of three scenarios: either the recent applications do not have this “Outstanding Universal Value” value in themselves, or the consecutive proposals continue to be poorly instructed and substantiated, or the evaluation is being unfair – without rigor and without criteria.

According to the UNESCO National Commission, the problem may be in excess of classified sites registered in Portugal.

Now, this issue will only arise if, instead of approving nominations actually evaluating their exceptional value, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee uses other types of evaluation criteria.

If we already have excess, possibly then the current sites nor will they be worthy of such status. It would be a huge contradiction, therefore, on the part of those who have the final say: UNESCO.

Luis Montenegrohaving the Portuguese have the mentality of Cristiano Ronaldo, actually raises the bar in terms of demands. Possibly, if we had more Cristianos Ronaldos working on our candidacieswe would not continue to accumulate so many failures.

Of course, footballingly speaking, if the problem is in the arbitrationit won’t do any good to have so many Cristianos Ronaldos.

Several projects continue to be prepared and evaluated. I’m sure that, after so many failures, some of these applications will start to be approved. The right time will come.

As for our Football Team, response time is shorter. There is no margin for error. Either it’s now, or we have to wait another four years!