Jorge MendesGETTY IMAGES
In early '16, Europe’s "most powerful" football agent, Jorge Mendes, and Chinese billionaire Guo Guangchang announced they would create an agency to expand football in China and "help players build careers," according to Bergin & Bryan-Low of REUTERS. But that was "only part of the plan." What Mendes and Guo, the co-founder of an investment group called Fosun, did not "publicly reveal then, or since, was that they also envisaged" creating a network of clubs and academies in Europe and buying and selling players, emails and "internal presentations related to the deal show." Such a network "would enable the partners to sidestep a ban on investors buying stakes in players and trading them." With the help of top agents like Mendes, "such trading could capture profits that might otherwise go to assist smaller clubs." Fosun reportedly believed trading and representing players "was the only sustainably profitable part" of the football industry. One aim was to "create a network for identifying players who could later be sold on for profit," Fosun presentations and emails show. A '16 email from a Fosun exec described investing and trading in players as "the most lucrative part of business in the football industry." Fosun, Guo, Mendes, and Mendes' business partner Luis Correia did not respond to requests for comment. The insight into the ambitions of Guo, Fosun and 52-year-old Mendes comes from "Football Leaks." Trading in talent "is often more profitable" than owning football clubs, according to academics who study the sport. But it is "also a business model that some fans, officials and club owners" criticize and oppose. Ivo Belet, a Belgian member of the European parliament who has "taken a close interest in football governance," said that the relationship between agents and clubs is a "big threat to football in Europe and it should be looked into more carefully" (REUTERS, 1/3).
