Villas-Boas backs Iberian Super Cup: "Big clubs are on board" | OneFootball

André Villas-Boas was one of the guest speakers at the Portugal Football Summit, held at the City of Football, and took the opportunity to assess the period in which he has been serving as president of FC Porto. He spoke about the fraught relationship among the “big three” and presented a proposal for a new competition.

“What remains is the unique love for FC Porto, what the club represents, values and principles, a life’s destiny, obligation, the sense of becoming president. Now I am driven by a sense of mission, to better serve the institution and hand it over in better shape than when I found it, which will be difficult given our historic and glorious past. To hand it over with titles, well structured, with growth in membership. A huge personal transformation. From coach to president I found many differences; my day-to-day is leading teams. I can be proud that I have one of the best management teams in the country, and that’s why we’ve had these results in 16 months,” he began by saying.

“In sporting terms we aspired to titles and the first year of the term was tough. FC Porto fell short of its objectives; some changes along the way, a massive financial restructuring. FC Porto moved around 450 million euros in the market and financial operations. That’s what saved the club. The situation was dangerous; we were helped by members with commercial paper, then one of the financial operations, which was later replicated by the other big clubs: we raised 115 million euros with American debt. A path of restructuring; we sold 30%. An injection that served to save FC Porto and keep it as a members’ club. That is our greatest purpose and that’s how we want to leave it,” he continued.

“Fortunately, I found very methodical, very professional people who gave themselves heart and soul. People who helped me arrive and execute a plan. Where there was no capital, we had to lean on the members, those who love FC Porto, who enabled us to raise 15 million euros from staff, players; it was a borderline situation. Background work during the campaign was fundamental. Opening markets, we met with JP Morgan to see how people responded to the FC Porto brand; credibility with banks was on the floor. We didn’t want it to be with the harshness of finishing 3rd; we won the Super Cup and we can be proud of it, but it was not enough,” he added, before addressing the possibility of creating an Iberian Super Cup.

“If we think of sports other than football, we have various types of competitions, such as Iberian Super Cups, cross-border leagues. I’m of the opinion that football is heading that way. I threw down the challenge to Pedro Proença and to the other big Portuguese and Spanish clubs at the start of my term. Now we’re all butting heads, but the idea stuck; it was well received by Atlético Madrid, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Benfica, Sporting and the FPF,” he confided.

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