LONDON, July 8, 2008 (AFP) - The disgraced former president of Portuguese football club Benfica was arrested in London Tuesday on allegations of financial irregularities, the Metropolitan Police said.

Joao Vale e Azevedo, 51, who lives in London's exclusive Knightsbridge area, near the upmarket department store Harrods, was detained when he attended a nearby police station by appointment.

'He was arrested by the Met's Extradition unit under an EU arrest warrant issued by the Portuguese authorities in connection with a fraud investigation,' a statement said.

Vale e Azevedo, who was at Benfica for three years from October 1997 to October 2000, appeared briefly before magistrates in central London Tuesday afternoon. The case was adjourned to a further hearing on July 25.

In 2005, Vale e Azevedo received an 18-month jail term for falsifying documents pertaining to the sale of pitches belonging to the team. But the former business lawyer was cleared of laundering and embezzlement of funds.

He had already received a four-and-a-half-year jail sentence in 2002 for embezzlement for using 1.3 million euros (two million dollars) from the sale of Russian goalkeeper Sergei Ovchinnikov to buy a yacht called 'Lucky Me'.