The results of the audit were described as “delicate” by the group of auditors, with the Club presenting a total of consolidated liberties of 375 million Euros (183 million in negative equity). “We have a challenge on our hands relative to the management of Sporting, but solutions are being looked into for the short/medium term in order to reduce costs, produce revenue and to stabalise the situation”, noted one of the auditors speaking in the conference.

Godinho Lopes admitted that the results of the audit come as little surprise, with the exception of one or two issues: “This is nothing new. One or two things may have come out of this that we didn’t know about, but we have been taking steps to resolve the situation. We already knew that we have two possible paths that we can take: reduce costs, with us already knowing that less revenue had been coming in, or to invest, which is what we have been doing. We have been betting on players that bring value to the Club and people to the Stadium. We have had bigger crowds than last year, we have been reaching out to our Members and we have put the Sporting brand back where it should be.”

Godinho Lopes also noted that last year the Club was feeling a bit of a “whole in the budget” and went on to speak about expected income over the coming years: “We are going to increase revenue through merchandising and membership fees. We have already renegotiated our television rights and naming rights to the Academy. I would like to use this opportunity to appeal to Sporting’s fans to become Members. We will launch a new campaign in April and with the new partnerships that we will announce in June, we will see more people signing up. That is one of the ways that we will be looking to increase revenue. We want to be making 70 million Euros by the end of 2014 and the quality of our youth development system is only going to help with that. If we allow ourselves to keep going through the same cycle then we have no chance. Our revenue projections don’t include possible participation in the Champions League, or the possible sale of players. I am fully aware that there could be a short fall in the coming two years, but we will look to deal with that until we steady things out financially in 2014.”

To finish, the Sporting president revealed that foreign investment is SAD is not being completely ruled out: “I gave two interviews towards the end of last year where I talked about that. At the time I mentioned the possibility of bringing in revenue with the assistance of an external investor. We want Sporting to keep hold of a majority of SAD, but it is only worth talking in greater depth about that when someone actually puts a bid in. Before that we would only be talking purely hypothetically. The selling of 49% of SAD’s capital is down to the administration to decide, while less than 49% being left to our Members in General Assembly to decide.”

In relation to the news yesterday of vice-president Carlos Barbosa’s exit from the Club, Godinho Lopes said: “His resignation is down to the fact that the reorganisation of Sporting’s commercial department is now coming to a close and because he has other professional commitments, meaning that he can’t dedicate as much time to Sporting as he would like to.”

Text: Sandro Baguinho
Photos: Pedro Cruz