2025: The Year of the Collapse of the Pro Skate League?
Exclusive of Site Nacional de Skate
The True History of Skateboarding in Portugal: Chapter X – 2025: The Year of the Collapse of the Pro Skate League?
- Francisco Patrone wins Freestyle Community Award
- And yet another attempt to silence our website.
Starting the year 2025, Freestyle will once again show that it is the dominant modality in Portugal in skateboarding championships worldwide.
Francisco Patrone won Freestyle’s highest prize, the Community Prize, and also brought home 12th place… but was completely ignored by the Portuguese Skating Federation, (the organization that oversees skateboarding in Portugal).
This disregard for the achievements of the Portuguese in this type of skateboarding is an attitude that this Federation, which calls itself inclusive, has always had, as it prefers to give total notoriety to the Street Skateboarding modality… it will certainly be just an “unfortunate coincidence” given that Paulo Ribeiro (National Skateboard coach, CEO, etc, etc, etc…) has his children competing in the Pro Skate League, an organization of which he is also a member.
Perhaps this is the only way to explain why the FPP could be “unaware” of the existence of the Freestyle modality.
But moving on to talking specifically about Street, our National Skateboarding Team (chosen by Paulo Ribeiro), had another disappointment, this time historic, obtaining terrible results in Men’s and Women’s Street.
In the Park modality, Thomas Augusto (with triple nationality 🇧🇷 🇺🇸 🇵🇹) obtained 10th place.
Men: Madu Teixeira 38th, Gabriel Ribeiro 41st, Pacal Teixeira 45th and Gustavo Ribeiro 48th;
Women: Carmo Gautier 34th, Mariana Simão 35th and Matilde Ribeiro 51st.
LINK TO OFFICIAL STREET RESULTS
📉 2025: The Year of the Collapse of Liga Pro Skate?
Between abandonment, silent protest and a historic drop in participation.
For many within the community, 2025 wasn’t just another difficult time — it was the year that Liga Pro Skate lost the pulse of the culture it claimed to represent.
The visible break
The numbers speak for themselves — fewer registered athletes, fewer places represented, visibly emptier stands and a noticeable absence of the usual names on the national scene. Although no detailed reports were released, the general perception among practitioners and followers was clear: there was a brutal decrease in participation.
But why?
An informal boycott?
Throughout the year, the narrative of a “silent boycott” grew. There were no official announcements, nor organized public movements. What happened was simply absence.
Experienced skaters chose not to compete, Brands reduced involvement, Local skaters chose other circuits or independent events.
More than an attitude, it seemed like an intentional departure, a sign that skaters definitively stopped identifying with this “national” competition.
Professionalization:
Is it possible to professionalize skateboarding while ignoring its cultural basis?
When the logic of producing events goes beyond the community spirit, fracture is created. Many felt that the LPS, instead of being a legitimate competition, has become a sort of “capture center” that just wants to turn skaters into customers instead of athletes.
The feeling has also grown that there is internally a “discourse” increasingly directed towards parents of young children, appealing to them to register them in the competition with the aim of being able to obtain some return as a result of any eventual sporting success, thus enticing parents to treat their children as if they were more profitable “financial products” than, for example, a Bank Term Deposit.
The role of the media
The Portuguese skateboarding community has discussed how the media can amplify or silence voices. In 2025, criticism circulated mainly on independent platforms. Official coverage maintained a positive discourse, contrasting with the discontent visible on the ground.
This divergence contributed to the feeling of disconnection between institutional narrative and community reality.
Site Nacional de Skate suffered yet another silencing attempt!
Since 1994, we have been showing the raw reality of skateboarding in Portugal.
Since 1994, we have exposed corruption, cronyism, nepotism, and conflict of interests.
Since 1994, we have been a “thorn in the side” of all the fraudsters who make Portuguese skateboarding a kind of “sewer” where the worst people end up.
Since 1994, we have refused to accept that Portuguese skateboarding is a “trash bin”, where other countries and/or entities deposit people who do not serve them.
Since 1994, we have refused to accept that they turn Portuguese skateboarding into a “shelter” for failures, or those frustrated by never having achieved anything important in life. Take revenge elsewhere, and leave skateboarding alone!
We have more than 30 years of complaints that ended “schemes”, false associations, and even ruined some negotiations between “architects” with shell companies.
More than 30 years of complaints make us a “target to kill”, and so we understand very well that they want to silence us.
This is why we decided to reveal for the first time, that over several decades we have been suffering attempts to silence our IG account and our official website, and even written threats from people who hold important institutional positions in Portuguese skateboarding.
The year 2025 was no exception, our website was inoperative for some time… but perhaps we didn’t even notice it because we managed to recover quickly.
These attempts at silencing appear to have a high degree of sophistication, which indicates that they are carried out by paid professionals, and not by so-called “scammers” as these are in reality practically illiterate.
By the way, in case any of those “scammers” are reading this, our message to them is the following: We are not a website, we are not an IG account, we are a collective of many thousands of skaters with the most varied professions (yes we have Lawyers, Architects, IT specialists, etc.), so the next time you think about paying someone to intimidate us, save your money.
A structural failure?
Whether it was a “total failure” or an identity crisis will depend on the capacity for reinvention. But 2025 left a clear message:
Without cultural legitimacy, no structure survives on logistics and branding alone.
🏛️ Associations, Power and Memory: The Dispute for the History of Skateboarding in Portugal
In recent years, several associations linked to skateboarding have emerged in different parts of the country. Some were born organically, representing real communities. Others were the target of internal criticism regarding their legitimacy and representativeness.
The debate isn’t just about management — it’s about memory.
The role of Associations
The importance of Associations as a bridge between practitioners and institutions is highlighted. They can secure skateparks, events, funding and recognition.
But when an association emerges without a historical connection to the local community, some questions arise:
Who does she really represent?
Who really are the founders? Skaters or just investors looking for profit?
We know that money moves the world, and without money nothing can be done, but is it healthy for there to be people within these Associations whose objective is to “live off skateboarding” instead of “living off skateboarding”?
The symbolic rewriting
In several regions, longtime members of the scene claim that the public narrative of local skateboarding has begun to privilege institutional discourses to the detriment of pioneers. Official events, inaugurations and communication campaigns began to highlight the role of formal structures, leaving decades of informal practice, DIY and urban history in the background.
The case discussed in Leiria
In Leiria, criticism arose regarding the political protagonism associated with local skateboarding. Some members of the community questioned the way the historical journey was presented in official contexts, suggesting a centralization of merit in more recent structures.
There is no public evidence of deliberate manipulation. What exists is a conflict of perceptions:
-The institutional vision celebrates investment and organization.
-The underground vision demands historical recognition and cultural autonomy.
Media, power and narrative
Whoever controls the communication channels influences the collective memory.
When associations and local authorities dominate the media, the official version tends to become dominant. This doesn’t necessarily mean falsification — but it could mean simplification.
A repeated omission often becomes a historical oblivion.
Skateboarding is not just infrastructure
Skateboarding is a living culture, built by generations who often never formalized their action in statutes or minutes.
The current moment is one of tension between skateboarding as a free movement, and “professionalized” skateboarding that runs at the whim of private capital.
The question that remains is profound:
Can institutionalization preserve the soul of what was born without permission?
👀 Do you want to see more exclusive articles from Site Nacional de Skate of The True History of Skateboarding in Portugal? Peek 👉 Here.
