João Duque slams Benfica’s disastrous policy: “Under siege” | OneFootball

The recent transfer market, which ended in the early hours of last Tuesday, September 2, brought historic results never before witnessed in Portugal. Faced with the 362.96 million euros that were spent, João Duque, economist, accuses Benfica and Porto of being the main parties responsible for this event.

In statements to Agência Lusa, the expert began by pointing out the main factors that led the two clubs to invest the way they did in recent months: “There are two very important phenomena here. Benfica has elections coming up and FC Porto, following the recent election of the new president [André Villas-Boas], since it hasn’t achieved results, began to feel deeply pressured and had to loosen the purse strings.”

Going further, the economist believes that both rivals may end up having problems with their approaches to the market: “Therefore, what will happen, from a financial point of view, is that one of the two, or even both, will have carried out a disastrous investment policy, because it’s not possible for both Porto and Benfica to win the championship. What can happen is that both lose it.”

Turning his attention to Benfica, the economist, in conversation with Lusa, believes that the investment made by the reds was carried out under adverse conditions, despite the good results in the market: “There isn’t that pressure. [For Sporting] not being national champion means not achieving the ‘three-peat’. Now, not being champion for I don’t know how many years, that’s already tough.”

Finally, he ‘applauded’ the way the national two-time champion has handled its moves in the market: “Sporting can be accused of excessive conservatism in the use of its resources. But I think it’s good to have a club that, after so much turmoil regarding its very survival, now tends towards stability.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.