Sporting president Bruno de Carvalho was this week invited to speak at Web Summit, a tech conference which was hosted in Lisbon this year.
But despite speaking at a technology event, of course you would expect the official to talk about controversies and player transfers, which is what he’s famous for ranting about.
One of the cases mentioned was, of course, William Carvalho, who Sporting negotiated over with West Ham in the summer, but he ended up staying at the Lisbon side with insults then flying between London and the Portuguese capital.
First speaking of agents’ commissions, Bruno said: “If we look at the studies that exist, England does not create many players. They usually buy and pay a lot for it. In addition to transfers, commissions.” (via A Bola).
Then he was asked if the battle with West Ham had something to do with this: “Battle? To have a battle you have to be interested in battling. That was not the case with West Ham.”
Back to the representatives, Bruno still had something interesting to say: “Agents have more and more power. Players are afraid to do something without the agent intervening. I see agents who are in the market to help but I see others where, when clubs have the deal almost done, they abort everything because they are not entitled to commission.
“If they receive anything, they will talk to the player. If they do not, deal canceled. We have to create concrete rules for all this. Don’t the funds buy players? Well, now they buy clubs. And governments have to get involved in this.
“I don’t believe that we have the capacity to solve these problems only at the level of federations and leagues, governments have to be present, it’s one of the main industries in the world. Ninety percent of European clubs do not have their accounts public. There is a huge black hole in football, this is something serious.”
Sporting’s public tussle with West Ham became quite intense by the end of the transfer window, but things were quick to calm down a few days later.
Now with recent reports saying William still wants to leave, and with his long time admirer David Moyes taking charge of the London side, maybe a few dozen million can make the clubs friends again.
Bruno de Carvalho could even end up exchanging Christmas presents with the West Ham owners he dubbed ‘The Dildo Brothers’. Maybe.
