Ex-Benfica chief heaps praise on Varandas and Villas-Boas... | OneFootball

Tiago Pinto, former Benfica director of football, praised Frederico Varandas and André Villas-Boas. The former Eagles executive — currently sporting director at Bournemouth in the Premier League — attended the Football Summit and was invited to comment on the atmosphere in Portuguese football — Roberto Martínez did the same.

"The Benfica fans won’t like to hear this, but I have great admiration for André Villas-Boas and Frederico Varandas. I think they are two presidents with courage, two presidents with leadership, and two presidents who have done a good job at their clubs," Tiago Pinto began.

The former Benfica man continued his analysis: "There’s one thing I don’t understand. Everyone wants to change Portuguese football, but then we get to the same old problems, which are refereeing and these head-butting feuds, and everyone does the same thing."

"So, what I know is that for Portuguese football to evolve, Benfica, Porto, and Sporting need to have dialogue and must definitively stop the public degradation of Portuguese football. Because if every day and every week we have FC Porto attacking Benfica, Benfica attacking Sporting, Sporting attacking Porto, we are deteriorating the product," warned the man who now works as an executive in the Premier League.

The former Benfica employee concluded: "How do we expect to sell a league where the club presidents are systematically attacking each other? That said, I repeat, I think that at this moment in time, with the presidents we have — also because they’re from a new generation — we had a fantastic opportunity to change this. The problem is that the few times I turn on the TV, it’s always the same thing."

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