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Come the transfer window, there is one name that resonates around board-rooms and chairman’s offices from Manchester to Madrid, from London to Barcelona and from Paris to Milan – Jorge Paolo Agostinho Mendes. A league triumph, a championship run, a season of immortality; the fates of big clubs all over rest in the shrewd hands of the world’s most powerful football agent, Jorge Mendes; the man they call super-agent. Whether it be over a dinner table or a mobile phone, Mendes brokers deals worth millions of Euros, negotiating for economic rights, image rights and player salaries with the kind of consummate ease and ruthless cunning that would have made Machiavelli proud.
From struggling to find himself as a player in Portuguese semi-professional football to becoming the games number one agent - via becoming a DJ, running a video game store and owning his own nightclub - Mendes has worked his way up through the shadowy, murky quagmire that is the football transfer market to become the most influential and the most sought after person in world football.
Early years – conflicts and rise
It was at his nightclub where Mendes met the goalkeeper Nuno Espírito Santo, who was at the time playing for Vitória Guimarães in the Portugese first division. Nuno had desperately been agitating for a move to F.C.Porto but Vitória were adamant that they wouldn’t sell to their hated rivals. Mendes, acting as Nuno’s agent engineered a deal to Deportivo La Coruna in the Spanish league and after four years in Spain, got him his dream move to Porto. Mendes had had his first taste of what it was like in the transfer market, and he knew he had found his true calling.
As he started gaining influence in the early 2000s, he came into direct conflict with the biggest agent at the time, Jose Veiga (who represented Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and Joao Pinto, amongst others), who accused Mendes of attempting to poach Figo from him. It all came to a head when a fistfight broke out between the two in Lisbon airport. Veiga, aware that his grasp was slipping was desperate, but there was very little he could do to stop the growing power of his rival as many of his clients including Deco, Ricardo Quaresma and Ricardo Carvalho were prised away from him. This was not going to be the last time someone accused him of poaching a client, but more on that in a while.
Now a fully-fledged agent and operating through his wholly owned company GestiFute, he brokered the transfer of Jorge Andrade from Porto to Deportivo La Coruna (Nuno would move the other way as a part of this deal – see how everything’s interlinked here?), the monumental (at least in Portuguese circles) move of Capucho from Vitoria to Porto and a brilliant deal for Costinha from the lower league club Nacional to A.S.Monaco in Ligue 1.
Around this time he started to frequent school tournaments and youth academies, and it was on one such foray that he befriended a skinny young kid named Cristiano Ronaldo. Their relationship would grow and after a series of visits to England, where he paraded the talents of the young Sporting Lisbon winger to the biggest clubs in the land, Sir Alex Ferguson signed up the 18 year old for a deal worth €15.3 million.
Establishing dominance over Portuguese football
As Ronaldo was little more than a promising youngster at the time, Mendes’ name would actually be well and truly made only in 2004, with a move that was to become one of the most decisive footballing moments of the decade, when Roman Abramovich made arguably his most significant signing at Chelsea – Jose Mourinho, the Special One. At the time, Mourinho, who had led F.C. Porto to an unbelievable triumph in the Champions League, already had an agent, Jose Badiek who had had been with him since the beginning of his coaching career and had almost lined up a move to Liverpool (imagine the possibilities if that had happened!). Mendes saw to the end of that relationship. At Chelsea, along with Mourinho came several of the players that had been integral to his success in Porto - Ricardo Carvalho, Paolo Ferreira, Tiago and Maniche – all represented by the man they were now beginning to call super-agent.
Mendes’ company, GestiFute operated a wonderfully efficient money spinning model of third party ownership where they would purchase a percentage of the economic rights of the players they represented as agents, thus ensuring tremendous profits. 70% of Anderson’s economic rights were bought from his club, Gremio for a reported €5.5 million before a move was brokered to Porto and then to Manchester United for a whopping €30 million. Another of his clients, Pepe, moved to Real Madrid for the same amount, with Simao Sabrosa moving to Porto for €20 million (15% of the economic rights of both players’ are owned by GestiFute)
Allegations of poaching would soon surface again, as Mendes oversaw the transfer of Nani from Sporting Lisbon to Manchester United for €25.5 million. Nani’s agent, Ana Almeida, came out with claims that he had been sacked only days before the deal was concluded. Mendes dismissed them saying that some people would just represent their players and do nothing, waiting for guys like him to come and make something happen. The allegations would resurface with greater strength after the Bébé transfer, the Portugese police even starting criminal investigations into the incident (summarily dismissed)
The Bébé transfer saga
Probably no deal encapsulates the money-making genius of Jorge Mendes better than the one he engineered for Bébé from Vitória Guimarães to Manchester United in 2011. The machinations of the ‘astonishing transfer’ (a term used by United themselves) are a truly fascinating insight into the murky world of football transfers.
Bébé had only made it into professional football a year back, and after a skillful 26 matches for Estrela da Amodora in the Portugese third division, his erstwhile agent Goncalo Reis negotiated a move to Vitória Guimarães, the only big club willing to take a gamble on the youngster. Soon after, Reis claimed he suddenly lost contact with his protégé and that it was only through the papers that he came to know Bébé had signed a contract with Vitória. After impressive displays in four pre-season friendlies, Bébé would go on to sign an improved contract, which set his buyout clause at €9m.
Bébé officially fired Reis as his agent through a letter dated August the 5th, claiming among other things that the contract was too heavily biased against him (It’s important to note here that the young striker had been living a life of abject poverty in a care home near Lisbon, and had had very limited education). Just 7 days later he signed on the dotted line for United. Of the transfer fee of €9m (the buyout clause set in the new, improved contract), Vitoria saw only €5.4 million.
Before his unexpected sacking, Reis had been working out a deal for Bébé where the player would own 30% of his own economic rights, meaning he would receive 30% of whatever transfer fee Vitoria sold him for. Reportedly, Mendes had bought out this 30% from Bébé for €100,000 before agreeing to the United deal. So, now Mendes was entitled to 30% of whatever transfer fee Vitoria received – and that share was now valued at €2.7million. Mendes also got his traditional 10% of the transfer fee (these are the standard rates for any Mendes transaction), hence adding €0.9 million to his kitty. Mendes had made himself €3.6 million from this deal! (as reported by the Guardian, among other leading publications)
Apart from highlighting the financial acumen of Mendes, this intriguing deal also highlighted the supreme networking capabilities of the super-agent. Bébé was reportedly the only signing Sir Alex Ferguson made in his legendary 26 year tenure where the great man himself had never seen the prospect play in person. That’s right, Fergie had never even seen Bébé play, the signing made on the recommendation of scouts based in Portugal and his former assistant manager, Carlos Queiroz.
Guess who Queiroz’s agent is?
The most powerful man in the transfer market
Even after Mourinho left Chelsea, Mendes retained close connections with Roman Abramovich and succeeded to convince him to hire another of his clients, Luis Felipe Scolari as manager. Along with Scolari came big money transfers for Jose Bosingwa (€20 million) and Deco (9 million) –both players naturally represented by Mendes. He would also become integral to Mourinho’s roving nomadic role as he first engineered a hugely successful move to Inter Milan, then a record breaking (four years, €40 million.) deal to Real Madrid and finally the return of the ‘Special One’ to his most famous stomping ground – Stamford Bridge.
Mendes would also run into more trouble over the earlier deals of Hugo Viana to Newcastle United (his first major international transfer), and Capucho to Glasgow Rangers with the Formation football agency (run by the powerful Paul Stretford – Wayne Rooney’s agent) claiming they did not receive their rightful share of the transfer fees. Mendes had tied up with Formation to get access to the big wigs in London –this had facilitated the transfers of Carvalho, Tiago, Ferreira and Ronaldo.
After his fallout with Formation, the super-agent tied up with former Manchester United and Chelsea Chief Executive Peter Kenyon and the American based Creative Artists Agency to start Quality Sports Investments (QSI), a firm that operates out of Ireland and Jersey (for tax reasons, obviously!)
In 2009, Mendes made history as he smashed the world-record for the highest transfer fee, getting Real Madrid to pay an eye popping €94 million for Cristiano Ronaldo. A salient point to be noted here is that Ronaldo now has more than the 50-50 image rights usually reserved for all the ‘Galcticos’ – highlighting the negotiating acumen of Mendes (now you know who inspires those temper tantrums and bouts of sudden sadness – and the routine “I would not mind moving back to Manchester United” sentiments)
He is now the most powerful agent in the market (almost totally covering every major/promising player the Portugese league and establishing strong bases in Brazil and Argentina), having brokered Falcao’s move (55% economic rights – GestiFute) from Porto to Atletico for €40 million and then to AS Monaco for €60 million, Angel di Maria’s and Fabio Coentrao’s move to Real for €45 million and €35 million respectively as well as Thiago Silva’s €10 million move to A.C Milan and subsequent record smashing (for a defender) €42 million move to PSG.
The business acumen of Mendes has been recogonised globally, most publicly at the glitzy Globe Soccer Awards, where he has won four consecutive ‘Agent of the Year’ awards. This summer, in a move signifying growing acceptance of agencies such as his in the world of football, GestiFute was recently announced as an official sponsor of the Portuguese superpower, F.C.Porto
This transfer window has again shown the extent of Mendes’ power, with the uber-talented young Colombian James Rodriguez moving to Real Madrid for an incredible €70 million. ‘Smaller’ deals including the defensive midfielder Fernando moving to Manchester City for €15 million have already been completed.
Florentino Perez knows full well what we will face as he tries to lure Falcao to Madrid. He knows, as does everyone else who takes these kind of decisions, that the person to lure is not the Colombian superstar. It’s the Portuguese super-agent.
Authors note –
*football transfers are becoming ever-more opaque, therefore it is hard to pinpoint how much the likes of GestiFute make in a transfer deal, apart from their 10% agents fees (again, this is standard, may differ for certain contracts). The complex business of third party ownership (of economic and image rights) adding to the confusion, although it is quite safe to say that Jorge Mendes is a very smart, very rich man.
**all currencies are denoted in Euros (€), the current conversion rate is 1€ = 82 INR
