Hadde DoF Brands innstilt Benitez som ny manager hadde man hatt noe å jobbe med. Det hadde ikke vært populært, men det kunne kanskje fungert. Å ansette en manager som starter med å undergrave DoF-rollen er et skikkelig dårlig utgangspunkt. Særlig når denne manageren har historie med å ønske kontroll over overganger og krangle med sportsdirektører.
Dette kan du selvsagt mene, men når man ser hvordan en annen Mendes-trener (Gattuso) gikk fram i Fiorentina og så prøver du likevel å snakke ned Mendes' innflyttelse i klubbene hvor han har manageren.
The details of Gattuso’s brief stay are shrouded by nondisclosure agreements signed by both the coach and the club. But at Fiorentina, insiders said, acrimony had flared almost as soon as he arrived.Within days of taking charge, Gattuso, who had most recently coached Milan and Napoli, provided the club’s management with a list of three major transfer targets. Two of the players are, like Gattuso, represented by Mendes. But all three also currently play for clubs that rely on Mendes to get them the best prices for the players they wish to offload.
Those apparent conflicts immediately alarmed Fiorentina officials, and in particular the team’s American owners, whose previous experiences in the transfer market had left them wary of the influence of agents on their club’s business.
Two of the players, Sérgio Oliveira, 29, and Jesús Corona, 28, currently play for Portugal’s F.C. Porto. (Gonçalo Guedes of Spain’s Valencia was the third.) Both could be acquired, though, Fiorentina was told, if the club paid a fee of 20 million euros (about $23.8 million) for each player and then agreed to meet the salary demands — 3 million euros (about $3.5 million) per year — in the five-year contracts that Mendes, who was brokering the deal, said they required.For Fiorentina, the figures made little sense.
Så ser du kjempeproblemer med Rafa og Kia, som overhodet ikke har noe historikk som likner, men ikke noen særlige problemer med at det å gi jobben til Mendes (eller Gattuso) betyr å gi nøklene til Mendes.