José Eugénio Dias Ferreira held multiple roles at Sporting CP during his career in Portuguese football administration, and was vice-president of the Lisbon club on two occasions.
Today, the vastly experienced Dias Ferreira has been speaking to the Portuguese media and given current Sporting president Frederico Varandas some gentle encouragement to sell Viktor Gyökeres to Arsenal… quickly.
Earlier today, we covered multiple Portuguese reports on Arsenal’s latest attempts for the striker. The Gunners latest offer, again verbal, is a €65m fixed fee plus €15m in bonuses, and Sporting want that to be changed to €70m plus €10m.
As we’ve explained on multiple occasions, what the bonuses are for will make a huge difference. When Tottenham Hotspur were trying to sign Bruno Fernandes, they offered a deal with bonuses which Varandas thought were comically unrealistic, so he mocked Spurs publicly.
After the 2019 summer window, Varandas said: “The only serious proposal, which was still only verbal, was a €45m bid from Tottenham for Bruno Fernandes, plus €20m in bonuses.
“€20m in bonuses which were about Tottenham becoming the Premier League winners, which they never were, and winning the Champions League, which has also never happened. So I found these goals extremely imposs…. difficult to accomplish. And I understood not to sell Bruno Fernandes.”
The midfielder later joined Manchester United for €55m plus €25m in bonuses, and Tottenham signed Giovani Lo Celso instead. Those €25m in bonuses included €5m after a certain number of appearances, €5m for Champions League qualification and €15m based on individual objectives.
If Arsenal are weighting some of the offered bonuses on winning the Champions League, that could be an issue.
Dias Ferreira feels things have dragged on to long and is quoted by Bola Branca as saying: “I think it’s time to put an end to this. It wouldn’t work for 60 plus 10, but 65 plus 15 is already €80m.
“Now it depends on what the €15m for objectives are. If they are to be world champions or something like that, it could be more difficult.
“It just started and I think everyone is more or less aware that the matter will be resolved, it was more or less agreed that Gyökeres was going to leave and, therefore, it was a question of when what Sporting wanted would come about. I think the team was no longer counting on Gyökeres, for all the reasons and more, but just because a swallow dies, spring doesn’t end.”
Sporting have published the details of the Bruno Fernandes to #MUFC deal:
• €55m initial fee
• €5m after a number of appearances
• €5m for CL qualification
• €15m for individual objectives
• 10% of profit from future sale pic.twitter.com/GLtJwICMo8
— Sport Witness (@Sport_Witness) January 29, 2020