Mayer fires a big dig at Rui Costa and reveals his plan at Benfica | OneFootball

Martim Mayer criticized Rui Costa's talent management. The candidate for the presidency of Benfica believes that the club should have "four to six players" from the B team moving up to the main squad to secure starting positions each season, pointing to the sale of João Neves, the last footballer to meet such requirements.

“As I say, I think this has a lot to do with institutionalizing a certain way of being organized. There’s a lot of talk about accelerating talent, and more and more we see players reaching their mature state of maximum competitiveness at 16 or 17 years old, when a few years ago, a few decades ago, that almost never happened. Therefore, we have to focus our energies precisely on that,” he told Record newspaper.

“Benfica’s youth development is something that is very well done and that needs to be emphasized, but it needs updates and it needs a philosophy that promotes and supplies the first team. So, there needs to be that investment, and that investment obviously carries risks, which can be more controlled or can be left more to chance,” he added.

Asked about the departures of talents such as João Neves, Gonçalo Ramos, or João Félix, Mayer assured: “I couldn’t put all the situations in the same basket. But I also don’t want to be the candidate who gets the lottery numbers right on Monday. Now, focusing specifically on João Neves, if you ask me if I think he was sold for financial reasons, I do. I know he was.”

“And that demonstrates what is poor club management. Because we cannot make sporting decisions for financial reasons, we have to have a financial platform that gives us the freedom to make the best sporting decisions. And that’s how I will organize Benfica. So, clearly, the talent left too soon for financial reasons,” Mayer admitted – who recently announced another big name on his list.

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