Jorge Mendes, the Portuguese football super-agent who represents stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and José Mourinho, has received a dividend of more than €17million from Gestifute International, the Irish-based arm of his agency.
Accounts for 2017 filed recently for the Dublin company show it paid €18 million to shareholders on November 12th. A note to the accounts suggests about €765,000 of this was due to Luis Correia, a nephew of Mr Mendes.
Mr Correia is a director of the Irish company and also owns a stake of close to 5 per cent. The rest is controlled by Mr Mendes’s Portuguese holding company, Start SGPS.
The payment brings total dividends paid out by the Irish arm over the last three years to €40 million, more than €38 million of which has gone to Mr Mendes.
Inflated
Gestifute International’s revenues held firm last year at €22.6 million, the accounts show. Profits fell by more than a quarter, however, to just under €16 million; the previous year’s comparative profit figure was inflated by a €6 million credit on its expenses.
The Dublin company employs six staff, including executive directors Mr Correia and Andy Quinn, a Dublin accountant, who has been a business associate of Mr Mendes for many years.
The accounts show that a company owned by Mr Quinn was also paid €82,500 for administration work for Gestifute International.
Mr Quinn was previously the managing partner of the accounting firm Moore Stephens, which he left last year. He kept his links with his client Mr Mendes, however, and Gestifute International is registered to a central Dublin business address used by Mr Quinn.
