Football (Soccer) Thread

[celedhring]

Cel - reading the chaos of Barca's finances.

The comparison being made in England is Leeds - are things really that bad?

I feel like Leeds has become the lazy go-to English journo comparison whenever a club is in financial dire straits.

It's bad, but not "get relegated and effectively disappear from football for two decades" bad. Worst case scenario right now is that we spend a few years struggling to remain in the Spanish Top 4.

[Sheilbh]

Okay - and the Leeds thing in this case was actually one of those shaking hands memes. Leeds and Barcelona: one man from Rosario away from disaster

[celedhring]

Right now the issue is that with our depressed revenue we're wildly over La Liga's wage cap. This means that without getting rid of several high earners (which we should do anyway) we can't resign Messi. And make no mistake, without Messi this team doesn't finish in the top 4 this past season.

[Sheilbh]

Did they make any adjustments for covid?

There are allegedly regulations like FFP in English football tied to commercial revenue but I think all of them have been suspended during covid. But lower down the leagues there are fixed caps and I think they are also frozen through covid so none of them look anything like sustainable now, but (in theory) covid is temporary...

[clandestino]

It seems that the president of Benfica was arrested today along with his son and a couple of friends/"businessmen".

A happy day at Duque's home for sure.

[celedhring]

Did they make any adjustments for covid?

There are allegedly regulations like FFP in English football tied to commercial revenue but I think all of them have been suspended during covid. But lower down the leagues there are fixed caps and I think they are also frozen through covid so none of them look anything like sustainable now, but (in theory) covid is temporary...

No, they didn't. That's what prompted a lot of clubs (Barça included) to defer salaries (which will be an issue in the upcoming seasons).

[clandestino]

Benfica ‘boss’ Luís Filipe Vieira arrested in massive swoop on homes, businesses, banking and law offices
By Natasha Donn -7th July 2021

Benfica president Luís Filipe Vieira was arrested today as part of an investigation into suspicions of fraud, abuse of trust and money laundering.

He is being held overnight at the PSP police station in Moscavide (Lisbon), to be presented before judge Carlos Alexandre tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

Also arrested with him were Tiago Vieira (his son), sports promoter Bruno Macedo and multimillionaire Benfica shareholder José dos Santos – popularly known as “Rei dos Frangos” (The Chicken King).

Say reports, the arrests came as Public Ministry investigators and tax inspectors led multiple searches related to the purchase of shares in Benfica “and other financial operations”.

A communiqué issued by DCIAP (the department of criminal investigation and penal action) has said the case centres on business and finance totalling in excess of €100 million “which may have resulted in elevated losses for the State and some companies”.

The case focuses on activities “from 2014 to the present day”.

In all 45 search warrants were exercised in Lisbon, Torres Vedras and Braga.

Premises searched included a banking institution (Novo Banco), law offices, various companies and homes.

According to Jornal de Notícias the Public Ministry has insisted on Mr Vieira being held in preventive custody, and is seeking that he remains so on the basis that he could pose a flight risk and compromise evidence.

Says the paper, the inquiry is covered by Portugal’s Secrecy of Justice rule.

So, a little more information about yesterday's breaking news.

I always believed that football club presidents would only be arrested once they left the club. They seemed even more protected than politicians so this come as a shock.

I don't believe anyone, even die-hard supporters, are surprised about the allegations being made.

Regarding this thread, the most interesting thing is how the club will react to this situation, Vieira is a very hands-on administrator and he has been the president for almost 20 years now. Last year results were not great (3rd place after a huge investment) and I'll be surprised if no one will appear trying to take the presidency from him sooner rather than later. Not sure how supporters will react since he won last year elections with 2/3 of the votes.

Turmoil ahead it seems.

[The Larch]

I'm curious about why that dos Santos guy is called "Rei dos frangos". 

[clandestino]

I'm curious about why that dos Santos guy is called "Rei dos frangos". 

He should have an empire of either chicken meat facilities or churrasqueiras (chicken barbecue shops). Let me check.

Ok, it seems it's the former or some other agro business.

And it seems there's a barbecue chain called also Rei dos Frangos (like predicted) and are having some problems.

Article bellow in Portuguese:

Após a detenção de Luís Filipe Vieira e José dos Santos, conhecido como o "rei dos frangos", a empresa Churrasqueiras Rei dos Frangos, Lda, com sede em Leiria, veio a público demarcar-se do caso.

Num comunicado publicado no seu site, a empresa viu-se obrigada a esclarecer que nenhuma das lojas - há 19 em Portugal - nem a sede foi alvo de buscas e que não está relacionada "com o Sr. Luís Filipe Vieira ou com qualquer uma das empresas que dá origem às diversas peças jornalísticas".

A empresa afirma ainda que um dos gerentes chama-se João Carlos Paiva Santos, mas não está relacionada com as pessoas sob investigação pelo Ministério Público. "Entre João e José vai todo um nome diferente, que deveria servir para inúmeras peças jornalísticas o conseguirem discernir, mas inúmeras vezes deixaram de o fazer", lê-se na nota.

"O indivíduo José António dos Santos (...) nunca é tratado pelo nome nem pelas empresas que gere, mas por uma metáfora bem mais curta e elegante, o "rei dos frangos". E é aqui que, infelizmente, somos chamados «à baila»". Hoje, temos clientes, fornecedores e amigos a perguntar, a ligar e a comentar consecutivamente, sem já conseguirem distinguir uma metáfora demasiadamente disseminada, estupefactos sobre o que (não) está a acontecer", continua a nota.

A empresa sublinha ainda que "é de assar frango que nós percebemos, de ações e SADs... nem tanto" e termina o comunicado com uma nota final: "Os nossos gerentes até são simpatizantes do Sporting!".

O empresário José dos Santos, conhecido por "rei dos frangos", ganhou esta alcunha que liderar o grupo Valouro, que detém várias empresas relacionadas com a produção de aves, como a Avibom, Kilom e Rações Valouro.

[The Larch]

I could swear there's a chicken joint with that name in almost every Portuguese city, town and village, that's why I was wondering. Now I see there's even a restaurant chain with that name. 

[Duque de Bragança]

It seems that the president of Benfica was arrested today along with his son and a couple of friends/"businessmen".

A happy day at Duque's home for sure.

Well, let's just say it partially mitigates a sad day since England is diving home. 

FYI, for the non-lusophones who like to misconstrue, "frangos" also means flukes in Portuguese, specially in football.  King of Flukes may be too hard to resist.
As for Luis Filipe Vieira a.k.a Tyre Kadhaffi or less charitably Dumbo, he is involved in the Banco Espírito Santo scandal, through firms he funded and/or managed.
Secondary figure, compared to Ricardo Salgado former BES CeO, but that is just an example of bad debts the bank had collected, among money laundering and corruption practices which led to to the split of the bank with one of the two structures just for "toxic" assets.

This ended in a costly bailout by the Bank of Portugal, i.e 4.4 billion €.

[Sheilbh]

Just reading about the chaos of the French TV deal and the issue that's causing Ligue 1 clubs (with an obvious exception). It's really grim

[Duque de Bragança]

Ligue 1 had it coming with the ludicrous deal they made with Jaume Roure's Mediapro (Spanish-Chinese), which had earlier been rejected by the Italians in a comparable deal. It was way too much, leaving their historical partner Canal + (pay TV) and even BeIn in the cold.

Nobody expected the pandemic obviously.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - the fact that Serie A looked at the same deal and rejected it because it didn't look right does make you think they maybe should have looked a little harder at the numbers etc.

It reminds me of the time that my football club were apparently in negotiations with a very wealthy Singaporean businessman and then on due diligence discovered he was a student living in a flat in Manchester It got embarrassingly far before anyone realised.

Edit: But still - from what I've read it's looking like their TV money will be 1/3 of what they'd agreed with Mediapro - plus the impact of covid. Together that is just catastrophic for the league and, I imagine, most clubs will really struggle.

[Duque de Bragança]

No question about that. It was oversold and now it's firesale prices. It's not as if things were perfect before. And still no live audiences in the near future. Ticketing was not as big as in other comparable countries, but it will still hurt.

for the student living in a Mancunian flat about to buy the club of his dreams, obviously.