A few weeks ago, there was some certainty that Fiorentina would sign Sérgio Oliveira from Porto.
The deal strangely collapsed once Gennaro Gattuso gave up on being La Viola’s manager for the next season, and the midfielder ended up being linked to some other clubs.
With the Italian manager said to be in talks to take charge of Tottenham Hotspur, reports from Portugal said Oliveira could take the same path. And more recently, with Nuno Espírito Santo getting closer on the job, the rumours about a move to Tottenham have increased.
Now what really happened between Oliveira and Fiorentina? The situation was explained by club president Rocco Commisso in a chat with the club’s podcast today. His statement started with the signing of Nico Gonzalez.
“I want to welcome Nicolas, the most important purchase in La Viola history. If we take the cost of the operation, we arrive at €29m gross. Then there are €11.7m in wages in five years, so the total amounts to around 40 million total,” said Commisso (via Calcio Mercato).
“In the case of Sergio Oliveira, there was talk of €22m in operation and another €22m in salary in the five-year period, €44m total: in addition, Oliveira after five years would not have been resalable at 34, unlike Nico at 28. We simply felt it was more advantageous to take one rather than the other.
“Here in Italy we read news about news every day. We cannot answer everything, but in the near future we will take action against the falsehoods and threats that have come in recent times. Gattuso? I’m sorry, but for legal reasons we haven’t been able to tell what happened. If Rino’s lawyers wanted to sit down with us and eliminate the confidentiality clause, I would gladly explain how it went.”
Commisso made it clear that he considers there’s something wrong with the way Jorge Mendes handles those deals, and wonders when other clubs will act to stop that.
“There are many conflicts of interest, which in America could not be acceptable. With Sergio Oliveira, the agent represented the player, Porto and our coach: something must be done, I don’t want to throw a bunch of money and say that all prosecutors are evil, but the system must change. We are moving forward on the market.”
Now with the agent being involved in Nuno Espírito Santo’s move to Tottenham as well, we wonder if Spurs will make any new efforts to sign the Porto midfielder.
