Press Releases

Lisbon, 11 May 2010 – In an unprecedented initiative, Vodafone is offering the ‘Benfica Anthem’, sung by Luiz Piçarra in its Music Store, thus enabling all its Customers who are supporters of Benfica football club to celebrate winning the national championship on their mobile phone.

The song can be downloaded free of charge and subsequently transferred with no limitations to any other digital means, such as a CD, PC or MP3 player, Vodafone Customers with a 3G mobile phone should send a text message with the word “campeao” (champion) to the number 12777. All other Customers can get a free download of the ‘Benfica Anthem’ at the Vodafone site through the following link: http://www.vodafone.pt/main/Entretenimento/Musica/album_Ser_Benfiquista.

This offer is open to Vodafone Customers from today onwards for the next two weeks.

The anthem entitled “Ser Benfiquista”, written by Paulino Gomes Júnior, the editor of the club’s newspaper at the time, and sung by Luíz Piçarra, was presented for the first time to 6 000 Benfica fans on 16 April 1953, in the Sports Pavilion, on the occasion of a concert to raise funds for the new Estádio da Luz stadium. Given the euphoria generated by its presentation until today, the song has become a huge success and is now supplied free of charge by Vodafone.

Vodafone’s Music Store has over 1 million songs, available in their entirety and completely free. Despite the high number of songs available, the search system is extremely user-friendly, enabling searches by artist, song title or both.