Rui Costa stays at São Paulo, Casares to decide on Belmonte | OneFootball

São Paulo has finalized the new contract for Rui Costa, its football executive. The official announcement hasn't been made yet (despite being leaked to journalists) because President Julio Casares first needs to decide the future of director Carlos Belmonte.

To curb Grêmio's interest, which had changed its management and was interested in the return of the former employee, Casares offered a salary increase to the executive and promised greater importance within the Barra Funda training center.

Costa accepted the offer over the past week and informed Grêmio that he will continue working at Morumbi at least until the end of 2026, when his contract with the Tricolor ends.

The news, on the other hand, highlights a somewhat 'perverse' point: the football director Carlos Belmonte is increasingly sidelined by Casares. And as AMT revealed at the beginning of the month, the insistence on 'promoting' Costa is related to Casares's decision to remove Belmonte from his management once and for all.

This is not necessarily new information. We have previously revealed here that during the club's greatest internal crisis, after being eliminated from the Copa Libertadores and failing to string together a series of victories in the Brazilian Championship, Casares was heavily pressured by allies for changes to occur at Barra Funda. And it can be read here that the main change was Belmonte's departure.

However, there are two problems. The first, more obvious, Casares did not want to strengthen opposition ranks by dismissing the football director who was once his great ally. The other, more practical, is the absence of a name to replace him without causing more friction with his support base. Professional football is São Paulo's flagship. It is the most prestigious position. And the chosen one would be seen as an obvious indicator of the leader's choice for his succession.

The solution, then, for the indecisive president, who does not want to displease either side, would be to appoint Costa, an outsider professional, which would also help him project a more professional image in his farewell from the leadership chair, essential to slightly clean up his tarnished image this year, when he began to be insulted in the stands.

Besides that, it would have a somewhat lesser impact. Yes, Belmonte may be criticized by fans (and even directors), but he gained status over five years in the position, being respected by players, agents, and even rival managers. Broadly speaking, Costa's appointment would represent continuity.

On the other hand, the entry of Marcio Carlomagno into the daily life of the training center had precisely this aim of increasing loyalty at Barra Funda, a terrain that became more treacherous for the 'staunch Casares supporters', with Belmonte increasingly distanced from the president. But the plan backfired. The superintendent was supposed to come in forcefully. But he found an environment controlled by Belmonte and surrounded by people who became loyal to the director. From the implicit rivalry, complicity emerged between the two. And there was the internal announcement from the chosen one that his plans do not include running for succession.

The report has previously revealed that Casares and Belmonte have not been on the same page for about three months, since Belmonte was insulted by a club director in a message leaked via an app. Despite the atmosphere of complicity that Casares tried to convey in a press conference at the Barra Funda training center, things have only become more complicated since then, after the football director became certain that he will not be nominated to run for the president's succession at the end of next year. And he emphasized that his political group is against the investment fund project for the youth categories in Cotia.

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