Ex-disco supremo Mendes becomes top soccer agent

PARIS, Dec 5, (AFP): Two decades ago, he was a simple entrepreneur making a living from managing a video club and discotheques.

That was then. Today, at the age of 50, Jorge Mendes operates in the rarified upper stratosphere of the hypermoneyed world inhabited by top sportsmen as agent to the stars — including Cristiano Ronaldo.

That status has placed him at the eye of the storm of the “Football Leaks” media investigation into alleged soccer corruption in the highest echelons of the world game.

Nicknamed “the shark” by rival agents, the diminutive Mendes has a penchant on the whole for being discreet — he rarely gives interviews.

When he does surface he is generally seen phone in hand or clamped to his ear wheeling and dealing for his stable of some 100 players or coaches whose interests he manages.

Yet Mendes has been front page news since an international consortium of media organisations highlighted a huge data leak purporting to show that Ronaldo and others, including Jose Mourinho, kept millions of earnings out of the taxman’s reach in havens.

Mendes, whose company, Gestifute International, is registered in Ireland, has vigorously denied any wrongdoing. Yet his methods have raised eyebrows in the past and are being questioned again after the data dump as reported by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) media consortium.

He was one of the first to exploit player rights through third parties such as investment funds — a practice FIFA has now made illegal.