Fernandes says decisions should serve Rio Ave, not primarily its investor

At Rio Ave’s general assembly in November 2023, Alexandrina Cruz stood before members at Vila do Conde’s municipal theatre and presented a plan to move the club’s football operations into a SAD, a company for managing professional football. She said the change would secure the club’s financial viability. The members were being asked to approve a change with lasting consequences: an outside investor would take a majority stake in the football company, altering who owned it while members retained a vote in the club’s presidency.

Fernandes is not calling for Rio Ave to reverse the move members approved. Instead, his candidacy asks who the arrangement should serve. Evangelos Marinakis owns 80% of the SAD, while members elect the club’s president. Fernandes says outside investment can remain, but decisions should serve Rio Ave rather than primarily the investor. His proposed change is therefore one of emphasis, not ownership: he wants to rebuild members’ connection to the club while pursuing transparency, planning and financial sustainability. That distinction puts this election at the centre of a question members already faced: what their vote can shape when the football company has a majority shareholder.

Fernandes announced his candidacy on 16 October under the slogan Hora da Mudança — Time for Change. In an interview with Record the previous day, he set out what he sees as the club’s central problem. The break he wants to repair is between Rio Ave and the people who belong to it.

I have always followed my path here and I am a Rio Ave member. This was the ideal moment, as I am passionate about football. The club is certainly not in crisis, but it has lost members and I believe we have lost the identity and essence that characterised the club in the past. We have lost our connection with the members, and that is what my team and I want to restore.

His platform extends beyond reconnecting with members. Fernandes has also listed communication, work with the academy, youth development, innovation and sporting success among his priorities, alongside the transparency and longer-term planning he says the club needs. Those aims give the slogan a practical test: whether members hear more clearly how decisions are made, and whether the club’s plans reach beyond the first team.

Fernandes draws a line between welcoming investment and accepting every decision made under it. He says he does not oppose an investor or Rio Ave’s SAD; his criticism is that some choices, in his view, have put the shareholder’s interests ahead of the club’s. He pointed to Clayton and André Luiz as examples of players he believes Rio Ave could have sold for more.

We are not, and never will be, against an investor coming in. We are critical when things are done only with the investor in mind and not the club. For example, there is Clayton and André Luiz, who were assets of immense quality in the squad and could have been sold for a higher amount. Some deals have been badly done. We are not, and were not, against creating a SAD at Rio Ave.

Fernandes offers no figures for what either player might have fetched, nor does he detail the transactions he considers mishandled. His examples set out the standard he wants members to apply: whether a deal served Rio Ave as well as the shareholder. Fernandes’s criticism has drawn no stated response from Marinakis or the SAD.

Fernandes’s benchmark is a season Rio Ave have not matched since 2013/14. He wants the club back at the level it reached under Nuno Espírito Santo, when it played in both the League Cup and Portuguese Cup finals. The reference is to a specific high point, not a claim that the current side has stopped winning.

Speaking to Record on 15 October, Fernandes acknowledged that Rio Ave had won recently, including at the weekend before the interview. After eight matches, Rio Ave was 14th with 7 points, having won 2, drawn 1 and lost 5. He nevertheless said the club should aim higher, setting that ambition against the recent results rather than presenting the team as failing outright.

We want to do better than Rio Ave have done. We have been winning, it is true, and we did so this weekend, but I want to return to the times when we reached a League Cup final and a Portuguese Cup final in the same year.

Fernandes did not set out a timetable or explain how he would get there. His stated target is a higher level than recent winning alone, measured against the most successful season he invoked.

The case for the SAD began with a vote by Rio Ave members in November 2023. They approved converting the club’s football operation into a SAD and authorised the board to negotiate a proposed 80 per cent stake for Evangelos Marinakis. The plan offered an answer to immediate financial pressures: €20.5 million was to be injected in stages through June 2024 to cover debts and other commitments, including the season’s budget and salaries. It also provided for investment in the squad and infrastructure.

An investment of this kind will have to extend over at least 30 years, to leverage the business and justify the amount injected. The €20.5 million relates to 80 per cent of the SAD’s share capital, but there will also be investment in strengthening the squad, starting in January, and in infrastructure, which will always remain in the club’s possession.

Cruz presented the arrangement as a long-term investment, with the club retaining ownership of its infrastructure even as the investor took a majority share in the football company.

The arrangement Cruz presented to members became formal on 15 June 2024, when Rio Ave established its SAD. Evangelos Marinakis held 80 per cent through RAH Sports Investments Limited, while the club retained 20 per cent, Record and RTP reported. The board brought together nominees of both sides: Boaz Jacob Toshav became president, with Alexandrina Cruz and Henrique Maia representing Rio Ave, and Diogo Ribeiro alongside Toshav representing the investor.

The board’s mandate was set to run until 2027, with Record specifying June that year. At the SAD’s formation, Toshav described the first season as a period to learn and improve gradually, framing the work as a long-term project rather than an immediate overhaul.

This is year zero and, in 2024/25, we want to study, learn from what we have here and start improving, because this is a marathon. We see this whole process in the long term.

At Vila do Conde’s municipal theatre in 2023, members were asked to approve the ownership structure within which the next presidential contest will take place. Fernandes has not named his full slate; he said only a few people remain to be found. Alexandrina Cruz has also said she intends to run, but no election date has been set. Speaking to Record, Fernandes said:

I believe that, by the end of this month, we will already have news from the club and about the next elections.

• Fernandes’s full candidate list, which he said was nearly complete.
• The 30 October general assembly, where the annual report and accounts are due and the election timetable is expected to be discussed.
• An announcement setting the election date, which remained unset as of 16 October.