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Humurous depictions of the portuguese national flag

Luís Afonso’s “footballitis” flag
Contra Informação’s 2013 Portuguese flag

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Luís Afonso’s “footballitis” flag

image by Jorge Candeias, 10 Feb 2002

In today’s edition of the PÚBLICA magazine there’s a cartoon by the resident cartoonist of the magazine and the newspaper Público, Luís Afonso, making fun of the footballitis that periodically sweeps this country. This weekend is one of these cases, because of a game between Porto and Benfica that might kick one of the two out of the struggle for the championship. The cartoon features an “alternative” portuguese flag, …
Jorge Candeias, 10 Feb 2002

Shield detail

by Jorge Candeias, 10 Feb 2002

…with a foot ball replacing the armillary sphere, cups in the place of the castles in the bordure of Castille and the symbols of the 5 clubs that won the championship throughout its history in the place of the 5 quinas. These are, from top to bottom and left to right, Benfica, Porto, Sporting, Belenenses and Boavista (which follows the order of the clubs in number of titles).
Jorge Candeias, 10 Feb 2002

Contra Informação’s 2013 Portuguese flag

image by Jorge Candeias, 24 Jul 2003

Last June 10th, Portugal Day, the public television RTP broadcasted a special Contra-Informação, to commemorate both the national haliday and the 7th aniversary of that show. (Contra-Informação is made following the same “rules” of the british show Spitting Image: public figures of the portuguese society (and not only) are sarcastically portrayed in puppets, with texts commenting the daily happenings and news.)

That special show, quite longer than usual (50 minutes, titled Contra o Futuro, i.e. Against the Future), had our party leaders travelling in time to 2013 to find the country submerged in a dictatorship under the people currently running portuguese football. As the story went, the European championship in 2004 demanded so much of the country that the guys from football took over when the portuguese team won, with massive popular support. But soon the regime became despotic and everything started to crumble.

When the time travellers arrive, in 2013, there are vast areas in Lisbon abandoned by everybody… and the flag is different: Instead of the green and red cloth with the arms on the division line, the new flag is a green and red cloth with the head of the Euro 2004 mascot, Kinas, on the division line. ("Kinas", by the way, is derived from "quinas", the portuguese word describing the blue inescutcheons with 5 bezants each.

Jorge Candeias, 24 Jul 2003