The most influential football agent

Jorge Mendes: The rise and
rise of Portugal's super-agent
How a DJ and nightclub owner became one of
most powerful men in football and the agent of
José Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo
Jorge Mendes was named agent of the year last
December – he made his first deal in 1994. Photograph:
Paulo Esteves/ASF Paulo Esteves/ASF
Jorge Mendes may have proclaimed himself
"world's best businessman" after his agent of
the year accolade at the Globe Soccer event in
December, but accounts of his life story
describe him, like many agents, falling into the
work by chance, just as the money to be made
in football deals began ballooning. He is
reported to have struggled to build a career in
Portuguese semi-professional football, then
worked as a DJ, opened a video shop, bar and
nightclub in Caminha, northern Portugal. There,
in 1996, he happened to meet the goalkeeper,
Nuno Espírito Santo, who was then playing for
Vitória Guimarães – the same club from which
Mendes orchestrated Bébé's sale to Manchester
United 14 years later. Mendes negotiated Nuno
a move to Deportiva La Coruña, and after that,
he moved gradually into the agency business.
Known now for doing hugely lucrative deals
representing almost all Portugal's international
players, together with José Mourinho, and Luiz
Felipe Scolari and Carlos Queiroz – both former
Portugal national team coaches – Mendes's rise
has been hard-edged. It was marked, famously
in Portugal, by a fist fight at Lisbon airport with
José Veiga, Luis Figo's agent, whom Mendes was
gradually supplanting in the early 2000s as the
country's top football fixer. He has also been
accused by other agents of moving in on their
players shortly before agreeing major deals –
Nani's former agent, Ana Almeida, complained
that the player joined Mendes, then Manchester
United, in 2005, while she still had a contract
with him. Bébé's agent, Gonçalo Reis, has said
he was cut off mid-contract, before Mendes
suddenly began to represent Bébé then within
days agreed a €9m (£7.5m) deal with United.
Discussing the dispute with Almeida in an
interview in 2006, Mendes was quoted as
saying: "There are people that have signed
contracts with players and are there waiting for
a Jorge Mendes to show up and take him to a
big club. They want to be glued to the operation
without ever having done anything to promote
it."
Even Mourinho is always reported to have
dropped his own agent, Jorge Baidek, before
signing up with Mendes then moving from
Porto to manage Chelsea in 2004. In a video
message played at the award ceremony in
Dubai, Mourinho praised Mendes's skill in
building good relationships with clubs and
managers, and for motivating players to
"respect the commitments with the clubs".
Ronaldo described his agent as "a fair and
honest man" with whom he established
"immediate empathy" as a 17-year-old.
Accepting the award in Dubai, which he
dedicated to his mother and brother, who have
both died in the last year and a half, Mendes
said: "Portugal is a small country, where people
who do well are the target of envy, but you
have to struggle against the tide."