André Villas-Boas has been elected president of FC Porto for the period 2024-2028, the northern Portuguese club announced on Sunday.
The ex-coach thus dethrones Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, who had been in office for 42 years.
During the elections held on Saturday, Villas-Boas (46 years old), who worked as a coach for Porto, Chelsea, Zenit Saint Petersburg and Olympique de Marseille, obtained 21,489 votes from the club’s ‘socios’, against 5,224 for his 86-year-old opponent, who has had 15 consecutive mandates at the head of the Dragons.
‘What a historic evening (…). Our club is alive and today it demonstrated its strength,’ responded André Villas-Boas, quoted in another press release released by Porto.
During its electoral campaign, ‘AVB’ promised to hire former Spanish international goalkeeper Andoni Zubizareta, whom he had met at OM, as sports director, and to entrust the football department to the former international defender Portuguese Jorge Costa, who later became a coach.
Mr. Pinto da Costa, for his part, announced this week the extension of the contract of the current Porto coach, Sérgio Conceiçao.
Crisis
Since his first election as president of the club, in April 1982, this essential personality of Portuguese football in recent decades has been credited with 23 national championship trophies and two European championship titles, in 1987 and 2004. But Porto is currently going through a financial and sporting crisis, as evidenced by its 3rd place in the Portuguese league rankings.
As a coach, André Villas-Boas for his part gave FC Porto a quadruple during the 2010/2011 season by winning the Europa League, the national championship, the Portuguese Cup and the League Cup.
/ATS