São Paulo to vote Monday on new ‘Cotia Fund’ project for club changes | OneFootball

Tricolor is negotiating deals to better capitalize on its youth from Cotia (Photo: Disclosure/SPFC)

MARCIO MONTEIRO

@avantmtricolor

In endless negotiations with Greek magnate Evangelius Marinakis for investment in its youth categories, the São Paulo Board of Directors is studying the Cotia Fund for changes in the club.

On Thursday (28), a meeting took place at the Tricolor Administrative Council to present the new Cotia Fund linked to Galápagos, an investment management company that helps São Paulo to pay off its debts.

At the conference, the participating members requested a longer period for analysis of the new proposal presented, with a duration expected to be five years. Thus, a new meeting at the Council was scheduled for Monday (1/9).

The Morumbi club and Marinakis are currently close in discussions about the formalization of the contract, they changed clauses on how the money will enter Tricolor: it would be through an investment fund to be created instead of a direct contribution from one CNPJ to another. This would allow the Greek to make similar agreements with other clubs or people (i.e., Textor and others).

In fact, the contractual change in the negotiation between the Greek magnate and São Paulo only provides a way to speed up the process with greater legal security. Besides, of course, relieving President Julio Casares a bit, thus avoiding the impression that the club is 'selling Cotia'. The terms and values revealed by us, however, still apply.

According to the 'Blog do São Paulo', the paradigm shift, with the creation of a new CNPJ for an investment fund, will allow Marinakis to be a sort of majority shareholder in the operation, allowing the entry of new investors, as long as the rules established by São Paulo for the division of rights of the youth from the base are followed.

The truth so far (and we only work with facts) is that São Paulo and Marinakis continue the discussions. Due to the complexity of the project and its innovation, there is no legal prerogative on this case, which is not covered by the SAF law, the delay is considered natural.

THE MINUTES

The board of São Paulo signed in March a memorandum of understanding with the group of Greek magnate Evangelius Marinakis to further advance the partnership for receiving investments mainly for the Tricolor's youth categories.

As AVANTE MEU TRICOLOR found out, the document formalizes the understanding between the parties for clauses of division of the fund of US$ 100 million (about R$ 600 million) that the Morumbi club will receive for the next five years.

The memorandum establishes how the money will be spent by Tricolor. The report found out that it was agreed that part of this amount (approximately R$ 100 million) will be spent on reinforcements for the professional team. But there is a cap for spending on players up to 25 years old.

The rest will indeed be for investments in young talents for the youth categories. São Paulo had to accept Marinakis' counteroffer, that part of the investments will be mandatory for the acquisition of promises from other South American countries.

Other clauses of the memorandum were already known: the biggest one is that the group of Marinakis will have a percentage of the youth players for the next ten years from the official signing of the agreement. There are also items that foresee the transfer of talents directly to the magnate's other clubs in Europe.

The document, which basically serves on the São Paulo side to be presented to the Deliberative Council, establishes that there is no termination penalty at this stage of the negotiations. In other words, either side can back out before the signing of the official contract.

São Paulo has already shown publicly that the deal with Marinakis may indeed be closer to being closed than it seems. The Morumbi club used its social networks to pay tribute to the centenary of Olympiacos, the favorite team of the Greek billionaire and of which he is the owner.

The text was posted in three languages (Portuguese, Greek, and English).

"To the giant Olympiacos, it is with great respect that we congratulate the greatest Greek champion for the beautiful trajectory built in these 100 years of history and achievements. May the next seasons be even more glorious," it says.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.