With Gendson Fernandes, Vinnie, now our DoF Paratici and potential new manager Nuno has it feels like Levy and the club is to become a Jorge Mendes club. If so what does that mean, we will get any benefit with access to better players from the super agent.
I suppose I am asking
Nabil Bentaleb
Benfica1904
and any other Portuguese member of the forum. How will this change the club, I think we need to know.
Well, my club is very much in the Jorge Mendes sphere of influence (more than Porto at the moment, I'd say), so I think I can help.
Other notable members include Valencia, Monaco, Napoli, Atletico Madrid, Famalicão (Portugal), Roma, especially now with Mourinho and a portuguese Director of Football, ex-Benfica Tiago Pinto. And of course, Wolves, which seems to be a very direct partnership with the club's owner, so Jorge Mendes has more power there.
Usually what happens is that clubs within the Jorge Mendes brotherhood have a strong tendency to trade players with each other. The benefits is that you have access to a vast network of good players (Gestifute, Mendes' company, have excelent scouts, they can really spot a talent), and you get preferential treatment when two or more clubs want the same player. The network doesn't include just Mendes's players. He has partnerships with other agents and always gets his nose everywhere.
Another big one is that if you buy a player from Jorge Mendes and it doesn't work out as expected, he will quickly find another club (within the Brotherhood) to offload the player to, so the original club doesn't lose much if anything at all. But that means you then owe Jorge Mendes a favour. So if, for example, Atletico Madrid buys X and he performs a bit shit, you may end up having X forced down your throat and buying him, to compensate the previous favour you got. Also, you will most likely pay the price Atletico Madrid paid, not the devalued market price caused by a poor season. So you're always in debit or credit with Mendes.
Just follow Raul Jimenez's career and you'll see how this pans out in real life.
- Looked good in Mexico
- At. Madrid buys him
- Does nothing in Spain
- Benfica buys him at an inflated price (Jorge Mendes promises he will be worth more than double in the future)
- Does ok-ish in Portugal, goes on loan to Wolves with an inflated buy-out clause (aka the price Mendes said he would be worth one day),
- Performs well in the PL and Benfica gets the money that was promised. Everyone's happy, especially Mendes with all those commissions.
I don't see Gedson Fernandes as a pure Mendes deal, Mourinho needed squad players, Levy didn't want to spend any money, our manager doesn't rate young players, so Gedson became temporarily available.
If Benfica had a different manager Gedson would have stayed in Lisbon.
Vinicius' career is much more typical of a Mendes player, basically the plan was Jimenez 2.0.