‘I don’t contract without being sure I’m going to pay’, says Rueda – 03/26/2023 – Sport

Upon hearing about reinforcements for the squad, Andres Rueda opens his notebook and justifies the nickname he received from an opposition adviser: Zé Planilha.

The president of Santos challenges:

“We have R$900,000 in cash. It indicates a quality player for us to hire for that amount.”

The financial difficulties in Vila Belmiro are not new, but the fans are used to making up for it with titles on the field. That’s over. The team has not been a champion since Paulista 2016. The technical crisis deepened under Rueda’s administration. In 2021 and 2022, Santos escaped relegation in the state only in the last round.

It only needed a draw against Ituano to reach the quarterfinals this year. He lost by 3 to 0 in a performance that the president himself does not find an answer to.

“Everybody broke down”, he doesn’t conform.

In the Brazilian, it ranked 10th (2021) and 12th (2022). He spent part of the two championships flirting with the relegation zone. Rueda has already been the target of protests from organized supporters. Associates started a movement called “Renuncia Rueda”. He doesn’t think about leaving.

What doesn’t even cross his mind is to use a consecrated term in football: the “financial effort” to make a signing. It means breaking the vault to bring in a player who will satisfy the fans. It’s hiring him today to see how he pays later.

“I don’t bring anyone, I don’t make a deal with anyone without being sure I’m going to pay. The problem is that sometimes the manager feels pressured and says ‘fuck it, I’m going to do this to have peace of mind.’ Do you think I’m not pressured? I love the fans, but my commitment is to Santos Futebol Clube”, he adds.

There are, among former presidents and advisors of the club, those who see a lack of experience and arrogance in not listening to different opinions. As suggestions for hiring and management changes ignored by Rueda and his Management Committee, the body that, by statute, commands the association.

One of the biggest criticisms is the alleged wrong bias of the administration, which would be concerned only with cutting expenses and not with increasing revenues. And that would only happen with good results on the field.

The team could be out of the 2024 Copa do Brasil, the most profitable national tournament. The bad phase also interferes with other fundraising factors, such as the sale of shirts and sponsorship amounts. The final placement in Brasileiro also influences the distribution of money from TV revenues.

Santos is experiencing the longest lack of titles since winning the national tournament in 2002, when it ended an 18-year queue.

Rueda defines Santos as “a box of surprises”. He always has unexpected and bad news lurking.

“In 2023 everything was set up to have a more comfortable situation, which would allow us to be aggressive in the market with one-off signings. We were counting on Kaiky’s money, but we were caught by surprise”, says the president.

He is referring to the negotiation of the defender with Almería, from Spain, for US$ 7 million (R$ 36.8 million at current quotations). The money was withheld by the country’s tax authorities because of unpaid taxes in 2013, when Neymar was bought by Barcelona.

It is not a speech that will please the fans and may reinforce the view of Rueda as a “payer of slips”, a common criticism leveled at him. He claims that it will be possible to make bigger signings in the July transfer window. He has money from sponsorships that will still be closed and the negotiation of another athlete. The biggest bargaining chip is Angelo.

Rueda says he has been managing Santos for two years and three months, with a season compromised by Covid-19. He remembers having made eight hires for this year, even if the quality of acquisitions is questioned in meetings of the Deliberative Council. About Lucas Lima, he says he was the midfielder the squad needed “and he’s there.”

Dismissed by Fortaleza almost without playing in 2022, the shipowner arrived in Baixada with a productivity contract. When he was at Palmeiras, he called Santos “sardines” on Twitter, said he had left Vila Belmiro to play in a “full stadium” and, in another interview, thanked that God had taken him “out of nowhere” to put him in the alviverde team.

He sees the acquisition of Lima as a low-risk one, as was another, the most contested of his tenure: that of attacking midfielder Luan. Borrowed for free by Corinthians, it was a failure.

Rueda feels wronged and cites the short memory of his opponents. He claims to have taken over Santos in a bankrupt situation and the biggest concern was to keep the club open. It is fantasy, he asserts, to separate finance from the field, because one factor is directly linked to the other. On the first day of administration, he received news that Santos was out of Profut, the debt refinancing program with the federal government.

This week, he was informed that he will have to pay around R$ 13 million to a law firm for having, according to the Justice, acted in bad faith and changed a contract. The case occurred during the administration of José Carlos Peres, his predecessor.

“These are things that fall into my lap,” he complains.

“The fans don’t have to worry about the debt. They didn’t do it, they don’t have to understand if there’s money blocked. They want results. the field was not forgotten. The club was strengthened with the possibilities it had.”

Santos debuts in the Brazilian Championship, on April 15, as a candidate for relegation. Visit Grêmio in the first round. Andres Rueda guarantees he has no fear of being the first demoted president in the association’s history. He claims that will not happen.

The leader had said, in 2021, that 2022 would be better for Santos in terms of the quality of the squad. He repeated his promise last year, referring to 2023. The team in no tournament came close to being champion. The president now guarantees that his successor will take office in January 2024, in a much calmer financial situation. The club’s future is no longer compromised, he swears.

Rueda opens the notebook again and shows agreements on debts made by previous administrations and that he had to do because they were in the execution phase. Like a BRL 4 million a year contract to sponsor a basketball team. Santos is in deficit and is in the red about R$ 8 million every year.

It is a weapon for those who criticize it and complain that the secret, in fact, is to increase revenue. A statement that Rueda disputes because the debts were preventing Santos from existing and needed to be paid.

It’s a risk. If his speech is correct and his successor can put together a winning team, the current president will not reap the rewards of his work. And if the chosen one is wasteful and throws to the ground everything that was done between 2021-2023, this one will be forgotten. Santos has the word “soccer” before “club”, and without results on the field, little else matters.

“I’m not proud of that”, says the president, who boasts only of having taken a company from scratch and sold it, years later, for R$ 600 million.

Multiplying money in the private sector does not mean success in football and Rueda knows that. He confesses that one of the biggest regrets of his management was having fired Fabio Carille at the beginning of last year, three months after he took over a technically limited team and with the risk of relegation, to 10th place in the Brazilian Championship.

For this reason, he says that he will until the end of his tenure with Odair Hellman, the 9th different coach of his tenure.

“If you have a suggestion of a good player for BRL 900,000, you can send it to me”, he reinforced, for the report of Sheetbefore saying goodbye.