After Leonardo’s departure, PSG are expected to choose Luis Campos to take over the sporting management of the club. His closeness to Kylian Mbappé weighs heavily in his appointment, as do his brilliant successes in Monaco and Lille.
PSG started a new revolution in a sensational way this weekend with the extension of Kylian Mbappé before the ousting of Leonardo, sporting director, a few hours later. The departure of the Brazilian seems to be part of a new outline of the Parisian sports project less centered on the flashy, more on the coherent. It is in this capacity that Luis Campos, close to Mbappé since their joint visit to Monaco, should soon be appointed to a position whose title has not yet been defined. The Portuguese is well known in the French championship where he greatly participated in thwarting… the plans of PSG.
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It was he who built the Monaco squad (2013-2016), crowned champion in 2017… a year after the departure of Campos. It was he who had recruited Bernardo Silva, Rony Lopes, Fabinho, Joao Moutinho or Thomas Lemar. He was still the architect of Lille’s coronation in 2021… a year after his departure (2017-2020). Campos had participated in the arrivals of Renato Sanches, Burak Yilmaz or Benjamin André. At 57, the Portuguese has touched almost all functions in football. Assistant, trainer, observer (at Real under the orders of José Mourinho), recruiter, then sports director… Since leaving the North, he has worked as a consultant for Mouscron and Celta Vigo.
A very different mission at PSG for this trading expert
A trading expert, he distinguished himself by his ability to recruit players at reasonable prices before making strong sales gains a few years later. In Paris, the mission will be different: the club does not seek to speculate, it wants to win titles and needs the best to achieve this. “In Monaco or Lille, he managed to do business and make purchases or sales, underlines Nicolas Vilas, Portuguese football specialist in the 7/7 live Twitch of RMC Sport (every day from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., on the RMC Sport twitch channel). There were also less successful shots. There was his touch. He arrives at a club where the objective is totally different. He is not there to do business, nor to value players even if you have financial fair play and there are imperatives linked to that, he is really there to win. »
One of his missions will be to recruit the next coach and sell players, too well settled in Paris for lack of playing time. Leonardo had broken his teeth there and his failures to reduce the workforce (Kurzawa, Draxler …) also weighed in the balance of his departure. Even Neymar is not safe from a transfer. Campos’ expertise will count in a particular context. In Paris, sports management is also decided in high places. And Campos, a man of character, is not fond of interventionism.
« Whether in Monaco or Lille, he had his hands on everything and had a say in everything, recalls Nicolas Vilas. As soon as there was a conflict of interest, we saw him in Lille with Marc Ingla, there was a direct confrontation. Lopez decided and Ingla ended up leaving, Campos also left. He is someone who needs to have a hand and a certain power. We saw at PSG these last years – with Antero Henrique or Leonardo – that there is sometimes interference. I am very curious to see how PSG managed to convince him to come and especially how this cohabitation is going to happen. PSG is this two-headed monster. »
What guarantees for Campos… who loves his freedom?
Campos may have obtained certain guarantees on his field of action. His past successes and his high rating on the market plead for him. His liabilities with PSG too since he was in the small papers of Parisian decision-makers in 2016. The deal was not concluded but Campos has not lost any credit since.
« He’s a guy who has touched everything, underlines Vilas. He knows what it is to be a coach, sports director, observer and physical trainer because he has created physical preparation programs. He knows the backstage , the administration and management of a club. He has been in talks with clubs like Roma in recent years. He has also been talked about at Manchester United. He turned down a lot of clubs because he liked having his freedom and to continue consulting work, but also because he knew that he was not necessarily going to have decision-making power in these clubs. When Antero came to PSG, he was told: ‘You will come and you will choose « . But in three years he has never appointed his own coach. I dare to imagine that he (Campos) will have a say in the future coach of PSG. I don’t see how we can have convinced him to come without him having this first guarantee. »
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