Varandas on Luis Suárez, Palhinha, the market and Sporting tapes | OneFootball

Frederico Varandas addressed several of Sporting’s transfer-market dossiers and began by guaranteeing Luis Suárez’s stay, dismissing any issue involving the Colombian. The Sporting president defended the striker and assured that, “to the disappointment of many people,” the ‘number 97’ will remain at Alvalade.

The SAD chairman also revealed that there is no offer whatsoever from Barcelona for Gonçalo Inácio and confirmed that Pedro Gonçalves “expects to leave” in this transfer window. Varandas also said that Rui Borges’s squad will still receive two new signings, although he chose not to reveal their identities.

Regarding João Palhinha, who is on his way to Benfica, the president admitted that the former midfielder had at one point been an option to return to Sporting. Even so, he explained that “investing tens of millions of euros in a 31-year-old player” does not fit the project defined by the green-and-white board.

Tension with Suárez?

"I saw the whole team hugging him. So much for any tension. Obviously, great news for our rivals would be his departure. First there was the Fenerbahçe episode, then the story about a disagreement in training—which made newspaper headlines, saying the dressing room was split, that the player had disrespected the club—when in fact, after a 10-v-10 drill where he ended up frustrated, he left because he thought training was already over. It wasn’t... Since he was late back because of the World Cup, he had extra work to do. Rui Borges called him over, in front of his teammates, and he did that work. I’ve been in football for many years, I’ve been champion three times, and I’ve seen fistfights—you have no idea. That’s not the army, but it’s not a scout group either"

Audios about Pote?

"Now, voice notes from some idiot... It’s like me saying: I had dinner with Angelina Jolie and Cindy Crawford and then decided which one I wanted. But then I let it be known that I didn’t give either of them a chance. The bachelor party never existed. But maybe, because there’s still some time left before the market closes, we’ll still have a week where we read that Suárez stole a teammate’s girlfriend. To the disappointment of many people, Suárez will continue to be a Sporting player. He is an exemplary professional and will very much want—because I know it—to continue being one"

Will Suárez only leave for the release clause?

"There is no offer for Suárez. No one is above the club. If Suárez is in the squad for a match, it’s because he was professional enough to honor that shirt. I’ll give an example: amid the turbulence of the January transfer window, our captain [he means Hjulmand], because of stories that never came to exist. There was less professional behavior and the player was left out, at a time when Sporting were competing for the league. So everyone can rest easy. Nobody messes with Sporting, whether it’s a star player, an 18-year-old kid, a captain, whoever it may be... We already set an example and I didn’t see anyone whistling at Hjulmand the following week"

Transfer market

Pre-season is two or three turbulent months. It’s a good thing we have players in demand. They are more sought-after than all the others. They are the ones being offered salaries five times higher, offers from Arabia... I want Sporting fans to keep their eyes open, not to fall for what our rivals want, because we can’t speak every day. And Suárez is not a problem, he is a solution"

Pote, Bragança, Inácio and Kaique...

"The market is open, two more players will come in and almost certainly there will be departures. Who? Inácio isn’t one of them. Why was he on the bench? I’m not the coach... Unless president Laporta lost my phone number, given all the talk about Barcelona. Pote expects to leave—whether he will, I don’t know. Kaique? I won’t say anything more"

Start of the league season

"Unfortunately I grew up with moral victories. Now, winning 3-1, it’s terrible... Ugly performances... I’d sign right now for 3-1 and 3-2 every time until the end of the season"

Rui Borges

"He was national champion, won the domestic double, and in his second season got the same number of points as last season, as well as reaching every decisive stage and achieving the biggest European campaign in our history. It took me a lot, a lot of work to pull Sporting out of decades of instability. Today, we post consecutive profits, the result of our sporting and financial policy. Sporting keeps growing. We grew up with there being two roosters for two perches, but it’s not like that anymore. Today, if we are not champions, we will always fight to become so"

"It was public that we were interested, but he gave priority to Tottenham—which is totally legitimate. Late June. Tottenham did not accept his financial terms. Today he is still a Bayern player and that, for us, would be impossible. If at the end of June the conditions had been these, we would not have moved forward. It simply is not our project or our strategy to invest tens of millions of euros in a 31-year-old player".

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