Gestifute
| Industry | Sports agency |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1996 |
| Founder | Jorge Mendes |
| Headquarters | Porto, Portugal |
|
Key people
|
Jorge Mendes |
| Website | www |
Gestão de Carreiras de Profissionais Desportivos, S.A., known as GestiFute, is a Portuguese company providing agent services for footballers. Unlike other football associations, Portugal allowed other parties to own part of the economic rights of the players, in order to receive part of the transfer fees.
The company was founded by Jorge Mendes.
GestiFute involved in numbers of high profile move in European transfer market, such as Cristiano Ronaldo. Before FIFA set up a new law restricting third party ownership (with "significant influence"), GestiFute was actively involved in third parties ownership. However, it in fact conflict of interests, as GestiFute was both the owner and the agent of the player. After 2008, GestiFute only received agent fees for the deals the company broke, and not actively in third parties ownership. However a portion of the million transfer deal (such as 5%) was already half of, or even exceeded, the annual salary of the player.
On 9 March 2003, GestiFute announced that they represent Benfica's midfielder Tiago, who was previously represented by their rival company, Superfute. Approximately two months later, on 23 May, Tiago's teammate Ricardo Rocha traveled the same path, making a surprising move to GestiFute. During the summer of that year, on 29 July, Porto bought 20% of Deco's economic rights from GestiFute for €2.25 million, plus 5% of Paulo Ferreira and Ricardo Carvalho's economic rights, this price being higher than presumed because the Portuguese team refused a €15 million offer from Barcelona. On 4 April, the same team bought more 15% of Deco's economic rights for €1.25 million, plus 10% of strker Benni McCarthy's rights. After acquiring 35% rights, however, Porto still owned 85% rights before he was sold.
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Wikipedia