2023-10-04 07:45:33
Porto (Special Envoy) Jorge Paulo Agostinho Mendes was born in Lisbon on January 7, 1966. He grew up in a humble family and his dream, like that of many boys and girls, was to be a footballer. He tried it, but after a path without pain or glory, he soon began to squeeze his virtues in other ways, without stopping to think about football. It did not take him long to exploit his entrepreneurial skills and a special ability to persuade and convince based on a friendly, intelligent and close approach. “He’s not the typical clown who goes nuts, he knows what words to use and when to use them. A person who fits well. And that, in this job, is very important. If you have a good portfolio of footballers and good relations with the clubs, it’s the perfect storm”, explains Óscar Tena, FIFA agent and who for the last six years has worked for the company Tactic Grup, which represents, among others, Sergio Busquets and Sergi Roberto.
Before becoming an agent, Mendes moved with his family to northern Portugal, where he signed his first house-brand deal, his first win-win linked to a football club. He proposed to the president of the modest Lanheses not to collect his salary as a footballer in exchange for being able to advertise his businesses on the field’s static advertising. The seed was already planted. He opened a video club. Then, also a disco. And it was in the nightlife sector where his legend as an agent would begin to form. One night he met – and convinced – the goalkeeper Nuno Espírito Santo to represent him. After much insistence, he got the former president of Deportivo de la Coruña, Augusto César Lendoiro, to sign him for the Galician team, where Nuno would not have much luck, but Mendes had already managed to make his first move. Constant visits to Lendoiro and taking him out to dinner had ended up paying off. The goalkeeper and first client of that initiator changed Vitoria de Guimarães for Dépor.
It was 1997 and Gestifute, his representative company, was born in Porto. A few years later, the Portuguese agent would go so far as to offer Lendoiro – or so explains the historical ex-president of Dépor – a very young Cristiano Ronaldo, but even at that time he was unaffordable for the Galician entity. “Mendes’ relationships transcend being just an agent or a friend of the players, he also controls clubs and their owners, with whom he weaves complicity. He makes you believe that he will get you what you want and, many times, he does. Only this explains the success and power it has,” journalist Gonzalo Cabeza, author of the podcast, explains to ARA Mendes’ cell phone, which is the result of nearly a year of researching the superagent. Cristiano, then a young and sharp 18-year-old Portuguese winger who stood out at Sporting Lisbon, was signed in 2003 by Manchester United for 17 million euros. Six years later, Real Madrid would pay 94 million for him. Mendes was beginning to earn the nickname of super agent. A personal brand that has been nurtured by always dressing carefully, taking great care of aesthetics and, there are even those who explain that they boast of having breakfast, lunch and dinner in up to three different cities in the same day. Everything, without separating from his three mobile phones.
Cristiano was the definitive leap in his meteoric career as a representative, as it involved dealing with the most powerful clubs in world football, but to understand how he got here, you need to go through Portugal first. “It is a small country, where a lot of work is done on the youth team, and it is also the first point of arrival for footballers from Africa or South America,” says Cabeza. In the case of Mendes, Di María, Falcao or Diego Costa, as prominent examples. “There is not enough room in Portugal for more than one agent. He charged José Veiga [que havia sigut el representant de Figo i Zidane]. Or rather Veiga immolated himself, because he started having a lot of problems with Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, the president of Porto.”
How Mendes managed to take over the representation business in Portuguese football in just over five years is the stage of his career that hides the most shadows. Their tentacles first extended to Porto, Barça’s opponent this Wednesday (9 p.m., Movistar Champions League), and then to Benfica, the country’s two giants. Today, the imprint of Mendes in Portugal is so evident that more than half of the players of the Lusitanian selection in the last World Cup are under his control. And, all this, in a context in which FIFA regulations limit contracts between representative and player to a maximum duration of two years. “He always brags about the fact that he doesn’t sign contracts with his footballers. Something that, personally, I think is a bit crazy. These are commercial agreements, they should be regulated. He’s not the only one, though. Mino Raiola also in boasted,” says Cabeza.
Jorge Mendes: the power in the shadow of many big clubs
After becoming the king in Portugal – he was decorated with the Order of Sports Merit -, Mendes has been the power in the shadow of many great clubs, among them, Real Madrid. An article from The Wall Street Journal he came to define him as the owner of the white club, a sentence that Florentino Pérez found hard to bear. His influence also extends to Peter Lim’s Valencia, where in recent years he has taken players of dubious performance, such as central Mangala, for figures in excess of 20 million euros, in the same way he managed to convert André Gomes in a “market opportunity” that Bartomeu’s Barça pounced on.
Do you remember Nuno Espírito Santo, with whom it all started? Well, when the goalkeeper retired and wanted to become a coach, Mendes placed him on the bench of the Portuguese Rio Ave, a humble club where the agent made and undid by placing his representatives there. Two seasons later, Nuno took the reins of the Valencia dressing room. Later, he would land on the bench of the English Wolverhampton, a club under the tutelage of Mendes. Basically, because it is owned by the Chinese conglomerate Fosun, with whom the super agent had joined forces to do business with Guo Guangchang, one of its founders. “Mendes has a special sense of smell to detect where the money is. He is much more than a representative of footballers, he is almost a representative of clubs”, points out Cabeza. If before the money was in China, now it is in Saudi Arabia. Do you know in which country Nuno is currently training? They got it right: the Saudi Al-Ittihad.
The tentacles of Jorge Mendes at Barça and his relationship with Joan Laporta
Currently, Barça is also one of the clubs where Mendes has several representatives: João Félix, Cancelo, Balde, Ansu (on loan to Brighton) and the recently renewed Lamine Yamal are some of the most prominent names. Others, like Iñaki Peña, do not represent them directly, but do maintain agreements with their agents. Nico González, Barça’s opponent this Wednesday, is also represented by Mendes. In addition, it is well known that the agent has a close relationship with Joan Laporta. “It’s true that lately Mendes is placing a lot of players at Barça, but that had also happened before with other representatives. When you’ve been doing business with a person for a long time you can build a friendship. You don’t have to see the dark side of everything, despite the commissions in the middle. If you have a trusted agent and he has a good portfolio of players, it’s a matter of supply and demand and it seems that Mendes manages to satisfy all parties,” reasons Òscar Tena.
Cabeza, however, sees this relationship between Barça and Mendes as more dangerous. “There are many nuances, but I think that the relationship that Laporta has with some agents is not entirely beneficial. Not only with Mendes [Laporta, per exemple, va anar fa uns mesos a la festa d’aniversari de Pini Zahavi, agent de Lewandowski]. Laporta is a representative of Barça, the club is not his. It is different in the case of Atlético de Madrid, that the person responsible for the club is its owner, Gil Marín. If Gil Marín plays it, it will affect his pocket. And let’s not forget that, in the end, the future of the clubs is the same for Mendes. If one club collapses, he will find another to do business with.”
Meanwhile, FIFA’s regulations have changed again since this October, with a measure taken to prevent, precisely, that agents like Mendes can profit from the three gangs that participate in football transactions. From now on, agents will only be able to receive commissions on behalf of the player and the buying club, but not the seller. A casuistry that had occurred, for example, when Mendes participated, in the summer of 2020, in the sale of Wolverhampton winger Matt Doherty to Tottenham, in an operation that raised dust in England. A change in regulations, however, that does not seem to be able to shake the private empire of the super agent very much. Porto and Portugal know it well.
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