Manchester United’s Bebe: the strangest transfer deal of the summer
This summer, Manchester United signed a young Portuguese football player named Bebe for the substantial fee of £7.4m. Bebe is a very interesting player because he moved from abject poverty to play for a major club in Portugal and
is now playing for Manchester United. The strangest part about the deal was that United’s manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, admitted never having seen Bebe play before he signed him and it was the first time that this had happened in the manager’s entire career.
Additionally, it was recently revealed that the agent who facilitated Bebe’s transfer to United was not the agent with whom Bebe was actually signed.
Bebe’s story is quite interesting. He is the son of poor immigrant parents in Portugal and ended up being placed in a shelter at a young age when his parents abandoned him. He started to play football at this shelter and started
to get noticed by scouts from big clubs in Portugal. There were reports that the player played in the Homeless World Cup but these turned out to be false. The first club that Bebe signed for was Loures, but then he moved to the second division club, Estrela
da Amadora, in 2009. It was also recently revealed that the young man was actually offered to PSV Eindhoven for free but they did not take him. In 2010, Bebe signed with Portuguese club Vitoria de Guimaraes when his previous club failed to pay his salary.
Vitoria had a release clause of €9m in his contract and he did not play a single game for the club before he switched teams again. After only five weeks with Vitoria, the rising star was snapped up by Manchester United when they paid the release clause fee
to his previous club.
The story of Bebe and Manchester United is far from over. Alex Ferguson, the decorated and very well respected manager of the English Premier League club, had apparently never met the 20 year old player before he signed him. This
came as a shock to a lot of people because this was the first time that this had ever happened in the manager’s illustrious career. The player was recommended to Ferguson by his former assistant and the Portuguese team’s ex-national coach, Carlos Queiroz.
It has also emerged that a lot of big Portuguese players like Cristiano Ronaldo and others had pushed hard for Man Utd to sign Bebe. So, it seems that acting on these recommendations alone, Ferguson decided to sign the player.
The young striker’s story is not over yet. He was represented by his agent, Goncalo Reis, until the deal that took place to send Bebe to United. Right before the Man Utd deal, Bebe switched agents to be represented by a man named
Jorge Mendes, in what a lot of people including Reis are calling a clear cut case of poaching. Switching agents is allowed before a contract has run out according to football regulations, but there has to be a legal reason for doing so and it must be done
in writing. The former agent is claiming that he was informed in writing but he received the letter three days after the deal was signed. This could be poaching by the new agent so as to claim a percentage of the huge signing fee or it could be sour grapes
on the part of the former agent who was dropped from his duties but now wants a share of the pie.
Now that the deal is inked and Bebe is a part of the team, we will have to see whether he is worth his huge signing bonus or if the money was wasted. Hopefully the young star’s agent problems will be resolved soon and he can get
down doing what he does best; scoring goals.
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