“André Villas-Boas is the new president of FC Porto,” the club announced in a press release released in the early hours of Sunday. During the elections held on Saturday, the 46-year-old former coach – who played 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,” reacted André Villas-Boas, quoted in another press release released by Porto. During his electoral campaign, “AVB” promised to hire the 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. 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 standings, 18 points behind leader Sporting, which it hosts on Sunday evening. As a coach, 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.
