Rui Costa shows no mercy to Villas-Boas, Benfica president hits back: Lied | OneFootball

Rui Costa completely denied the statements made by André Villas-Boas regarding the salaries earned by Benfica players, and also announced that he will file a complaint against Alan Varela, in response to Porto's attitude towards Vangelis Pavlidis. The Benfica President gave an interview to TSF where he addressed all the recent controversies in Portuguese football.

"Regarding these accusations, especially concerning salaries, I have never been concerned with those of other teams. I don't know why André Villas-Boas is worried. But yes, he lied! There are no players with those salaries at Benfica, and I don't know why he brought that up to justify whatever he wants," Rui Costa began to explain.

The President of Benfica continued with more details: "Yes, I have already admitted that more than once. We do not have salaries of that magnitude [8 M€], not even close, but even if we did, it would be a problem for Benfica, not FC Porto."

Then, he exposed the hypocrisy of Villas-Boas for complaining about the statements from Benfica and Sporting, after having made one about the B team of the dragons. He explained further: "I do not consider it coercion, but everyone has already complained, hence my surprise at FC Porto's reaction. I reiterate that this does not serve Portuguese football, but Benfica will not refrain from complaining when it believes it has reasons to do so and will draw attention whenever necessary."

He concluded with a call to resolve the problems in Portuguese football, since "If all four have already complained, someone has to do something." There was also room to talk about the classic, and Porto's complaint against Pavlidis: "It is completely absurd, it is a normal situation in the game. It makes no sense to create problems where there are none. On the other hand, it creates consequences. It makes very little sense, this is not what we want for Portuguese football, but this is where we are at the moment."

In closing, he announced that Benfica will respond in kind to the offensive against the Greek forward, with a complaint about Alan Varela due to an aggression, interestingly, against Pavlidis: "If we are going to file complaints about such a normal situation, we will also have reasons to do so. Am I pleased to enter into such a situation? No, I am not pleased, but it is a response, and if it applies to one side, it must apply to the other."

Check out the video of Rui Costa's candidacy presentation for the Presidency of Benfica here:

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