The Port to a foreign fund? It’s not a utopia, but a risk that hasn’t materialized thanks to the arrival of André Villas-Boas. The current president of the group revealed it bluntly Dragoes in an interview with The Teamin which he discussed the financial situation of the Portuguese club: “We contacted international institutions to refinance the club’s debt. We managed to raise 115 million euros at 5.62%, while Porto’s debt was until then indexed at rates between 8 and 13% per year. We needed to generate 15 million immediately to pay the salaries of the employees and players.”
Continuing: “The situation was really critical. If we hadn’t been elected, I think the club would have been sold to an American fund within one or two years, at most. There were 8,000 euros in the bank account”, the shocking admission of Villas-Boas.
The first days in the Porto chair were quite difficult: “When you have to, for example, leave people who earn 1000 euros a month waiting to allow the club to recover and be able to make payments, it is painful. Many players have left on free transfers, a lot of money has been paid to intermediaries While at Benfica and Sporting 40% of the value of sales goes into the club’s coffers, at Porto it was only 10%, due to various agreements.”
But the president now guarantees that the situation is improving: “We are already recording a 30-40% growth in our commercial revenue. Regarding transfers, the average commission paid by FC Porto to intermediaries was 13%. We have reduced it by 3%. We have changed the director sports, that of formations, performances, women’s football and scouting”.