Some of the well-known excerpts from the book «Azul till the end», which <a href="https://www.archysport.com/2022/01/fc-porto-news-fc-porto-football-sciences-institute-launches-new-training-offer-for-2022/" title="FC Porto – News – FC Porto Football Sciences Institute launches new training offer for 2022″>Pinto da Costa will present next Sunday (October 27), feature Sérgio Conceição as the protagonist.
The former FC Porto coach is targeted by the ex-president in some passages of the book, namely one dating from March 2023, after their elimination from the Champions League, against Inter.
Pinto da Costa would have decided not to renew the contract with Conceição, after the coach lamented the financial difficulties with which he had to work at the Dragons..
However, the “pecking” of the coach doesn’t stop there. Pinto da Costa criticized the pressure that Conceição exerted to hire Zé Luís and Nakajima, two deals that he considered “ruinous”.
«We were left, two days before the deadline given by UEFA, in a dilemma. Either we sold a player’s pass or we didn’t go to European competitions. This second solution, for me, was unacceptable. I had already warned my colleagues that if this happened, I would resign. And I explained to them that there was no other solution, as these debts were fundamentally due to two ruinous acts of management – the purchase of José Luís and Nakajima», it can be read.
«The pressure that the coach put on us to buy these players was no excuse, because we were to blame for giving in to that pressure», also wrote Pinto da Costa, who then justifies the sale of Luis Díaz to Liverpool with the financial hardship that the club was going through.
Now, Sérgio Conceição did not let this matter go and responded to the former president of FC Porto, in a note from the press office.
The 49-year-old coach recalled that, in his seven seasons at Dragão, he contributed to the 347 million in revenue from UEFA, as well as helping to earn more than 530 million euros in player sales.
Conceição’s advisor emphasizes that it is the coach’s role to «seek to have the most competitive squad possible, taking into account the reality of the club and the objectives that it is expected to achieve». Furthermore, the former Dragons coach points out that the blue and white structure was «increasingly weaker» in Pinto da Costa’s last years as leader.
«Sérgio managed to do it during FC Porto’s most difficult years, with an increasingly weak structure and serious limitations imposed by UEFA’s Financial Fairplay», the advisory note also points out.
