GestiFute full name Gestão de Carreiras de Profissionais Desportivos S.A. is a Portuguese company. It provides agent services for footballers. Unlike other football associations, Portugal allowed other parties to own part of the economic rights of the players, in order to receive part of the transfer fees. The company was founded by Jorge Mendes.
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GestiFute made a number of player investment along with Portuguese clubs. Anderson was as first signed by GestiFute in June 2005 and re-sold to F.C. Porto in January 2006 in order to avoid the protection of minor by FIFA. It was reported that Porto had 65% economic rights and GestiFute holds 20%, made the company gained a profit when Manchester United bought the full rights from both parties for € 30 million.[1]
GestiFute once holds more than 35% economic rights of Deco. Porto bought 20% from GestiFute for €2.25M plus 5% economic rights of Paulo Ferreira and Ricardo Carvalho in July 2003,[2] and bought another 15% in August 2003 for €1.25M plus 10% economic rights of Benedict McCarthy.[3] After the two previous deals, as of August 2003, Porto holds 85% rights of Deco and the rest unknown. In 2004, Ferreira and Carvalho was sold to Chelsea for €50M,[4][5] made the company received a estimate of €2.5M.
In January 2009, GestiFute signed Alexis Quintulen's 35% rights and Ignacio Ameli's 50% rights for €473 thousand.[6]
In summer 2009, the company bought 15% economic rights of Pelé.
In August 2010, the football agent Gonçalo Reis complained that he had been left on the sidelines when Bébé, a player he represented, was transferred to Manchester United from Vitória de Guimarães. "When [Jorge] Mendes arrived," he said, "I was out of the transaction." Reis had arranged Bébé's move to Vitória from Estrela da Amadora in the Portuguese third division in July 2010 after the cancellation of his contract due to the club's inability to pay the player's wages. Manchester United signed Bébé for a reported fee of £7.4 million five weeks later.[7] United's manager, Alex Ferguson, admitted that he had not seen Bébé play.[8] Gestifute apparently received 30 percent of the transfer fee for their part ownership of the player's economic rights.[9] Vitória's directors reported that Mendes had received €3.6 million of the €9 million fee from the deal, with reports in Portugal suggesting that €2.7 million of that sum came from the 30 percent of the player's economic rights initially retained by Bébé but bought from the player by Mendes for €100,000.[10]
GestiFute provide agency services for the following players: