How Marinakis made Benfica’s transfer window tricky | OneFootball

Evangelos Marinakis can be considered the main figure of the national winter market. The owner of Rio Ave's SAD was the leading protagonist in the André Luiz saga, creating immense difficulties for Benfica to finalize the signing of the winger, who ended up heading to Olympiacos.

According to the newspaper Record, in an article published this Wednesday, February 4th, Marinakis was not pleased with how the deal was conducted and ended up leaving Clube da Luz high and dry regarding the signing of the Brazilian winger.

The same source explains that the Greek magnate felt betrayed by the fact that the Benfica officials tried to speed up the process to sign André Luiz. With this in mind and advised by the possibility that the player could become highly valued at Benfica, which would leave Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos - who signed Clayton - in a very complicated position.

Thus, the owner of Rio Ave intervened directly in the deal and informed Rui Costa that, from that moment on, there would be no more negotiations, emphasizing that Benfica would have to pay the release clause, set at 20 million euros, if they wanted to sign André Luiz.

Faced with the well-known intransigence of the Greek, the Glorioso even presented an offer around 12 million euros, for a player valued at only 4M€. However, the eagles eventually gave up on the signing, which led André Luiz to head to the Greek champion, for 6.75 million euros, half of what Clube da Luz was willing to pay.

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