Flamengo vice-president of finance Rodrigo Tostes has discussed the permanent signing of Andreas Pereira, currently on loan from Manchester United.
The Manchester United loanee arrived in South America during the summer, and with the Brazilian outfit able to keep the midfielder for a fee in the region of €20m - a club-record figure currently held by striker Gabriel Barbosa.
It is the fourth loan spell away from Old Trafford for the 25-year-old after moves to Granada, Valencia and Lazio, in addition to the 75 appearances, and four goals, for the Reds, and will stay in Brazil until, at least, next summer.
Pereira, who sill has two years remaining on his United contract, has shown his versatility during his short spell in the continent with three goals in 10 games while being deployed in defensive, central and attacking midfield.
“I don’t know if Flamengo are going to buy him or not, it’s not even being discussed internally yet, there’s a huge deadline for us to look at this,” Rodrigo Tostes told Globo Esporte via Sport Witness.
"What I can say is: Do Flamengo have the capacity to buy an athlete worth €20m today? Totally. There’s certainly the potential for that.
"There is no lack of people wanting to lend money to Flamengo, they can generate this revenue. But a series of other factors need to be considered, which you will have to give up in order to eventually be able to make this investment.
"Now, buying potential, we bought Pedro now for €14m. Are Flamengo able to buy another €20m athlete? Totally.
"Now, what has to be studied is whether this makes sense within the logic I explained to you, this positive spiral of having a super winning team and this team continuing, creating related revenues, being able to continue making investments, and not putting all the investment inside a basket, for example.”
"Are Flamengo able to buy an athlete worth €30m? They have conditions. But then the athlete gets hurt. This is what football planning points out.
"So it’s not a matter of financial planning, it’s much bigger planning done by football, with finance, with the club president. If you take Flamengo’s investment in recent years in athlete purchases, it’s much bigger than €20m a year.
"So, they are able to buy. The question is whether it makes sense within this strategy that was set up."
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