O Botafogo lives a scenario of uncertainty behind the scenes in relation to the corporate dispute in Eagle Footballowner of SAF. In the program “Finanças do Esporte”, on “UOL”, the journalist Rodrigo Mattos brought new information on the topic and said that the Aresone of the funds that contributed the most money to the holding, has no interest in managing Glorioso.
Still according to the journalist, Eagle/Ares is looking for a buyer, which could be the company itself. John Textorbut there are also other interested parties. The tendency, however, is that things will not be resolved quickly.
– Ares and Eagle, whoever is in control of it, have already demonstrated that they do not want to stay with Botafogo in the long term. Are you going to sell now? No, because there is no one with the money they are asking for yet to buy Botafogo. So, you have to create a medium-term plan that supports Botafogo while it is in the process of being sold to a third party. Who is this third party? Textor is the main candidate, he is looking for money on the market and has not yet had time to make this purchase – began Mattos.
– Other interested parties have already appeared, this is the information I have, but they don’t know the business yet. They need to come in, start getting to know the accounts, they have to go through a whole process that Textor doesn’t need to do, because he is the current administrator. So, I think it will take some time – he added.
Rodrigo Mattos informed that there is an ongoing negotiation for a “bridge loan” for Botafogo to be able to fulfill its commitments in 2026, until the situation is resolved. There is a need for a contribution of €40 million (R$246 million) to start the year.
– What is being negotiated is some kind of bridge loan with Eagle and Ares for Botafogo to survive during this period, until you have a subsequent sale. This Eagle/Ares group will not stay with Botafogo in the long term, they have no interest. He wants to sell and recover as much money as possible from the deal. “Ah, they weren’t the ones who bought Botafogo, it was Textor”. True. Textor bought Botafogo. But then Botafogo went into Eagle, in a transaction, and Eagle is where Ares put a lot of money, US$425 million in loan, and it wants to recover that money. It is a fund that needs to recover its investors’ money. The same thing goes for Iconic, which has an alleged credit of US$94 million with Eagle – he explained.
– It will take longer to define it, we thought that something would come out in October or November. You will probably have a long process to find out who will buy it, whether it will be Textor or a third party. And, during this process, Ares will have to find a way, perhaps with a loan, to be able to keep Botafogo. This is what is being demanded and negotiated by the association itself, which is interested in keeping the club healthy. This is the stage we are at in this Botafogo case – concluded Mattos.
