The Apito Dourado scandal not only hit Portuguese football but also the whole Portuguese criminal procedure system. One of the big controversies was the fact that the prosecutors had "no doubts" about the Judiciary Police tipping off Pinto da Costa to clear his office hours before the conduction of a search. However, since the source of the leak was unable to be identified, the accusation was dismissed. The court decision which convicted lower division referees to fines has been subject of controversies. One of them is the justification it gave for not considering golden object offers to referees as relevant evidence. A wide debate has also been sparked between the right to privacy (invoked in this case as part of a claim that the unauthorized wiretaps were unusable evidence) and the demand for a more severe justice, regardless of the privacy rights of crime suspects.