Five months after steering exit of football CoritibaArtur Moraes spoke for the first time about his time at Alviverde, exclusively to OneTwo Sports. The director took over together with the SAF and left after the end of the 2023 season, when Coxa was relegated.
This Thursday (9), the announcement of the sale of 90% of the club’s SAF to Treecorp completes one year. Since then, Coxa has gone through several difficulties, from the dramatic relegation in 2023 to the most recent eliminations in the Brazilian Cup and in the Paraná Championship.
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Currently in Portugal, where he lives with his family, Moraes is away from football, according to him, to spend time taking care of his family. At Coritiba, in 2023, the executive had his first off-field experience in Brazilian football and stated that he does not intend to return to working with the sport in the country.
See the interview with Artur Moraes, former director of Coritiba
You arrived at Coritiba together with the SAF, approved in May 2023, and became the first football director of the “Treecorp Era”. What was that transition like?
Arrival was very difficult. It was not an easy task, Coritiba was experiencing a transition crisis, regarding what was done between the association and SAF. And there was a very high expectation of what SAF’s entry would be, that it could solve historical problems that the club has always faced in a few months. There were very high expectations generated by the project. It was very difficult.
We arrived with Coritiba in last place in the Brasileirão, within a Series A in which other SAF’s entered with a different timing, since the beginning of the season or in the month of December [de 2022]. This brought security for these SAFs to make large investments and we compete with clubs in processes that are much more advanced than ours. I believe this has been the biggest difficulty throughout the season.
Did you participate in the day to day life of the club before the SAF became official? Since when did Treecorp actually start to be present in the club’s decisions?
I didn’t participate. Sorry, you can’t say that I participated before it became official. One that I wasn’t involved in on a daily basis at the club. I can only say from when I stepped into the club and started working. Anyone who knows football knows that it is practically impossible for anyone to decide without being involved in the club’s day-to-day activities. I didn’t send Guto away in 2022. In fact, when I was there, he went back to being a coach.
From the moment I stepped into the club, I participated, without a doubt. And I encountered great difficulties due to ‘N’ things that were created even before our arrival, related to expectations, to gossip. Which ended up affecting work.
What were these difficulties?
We inherited a completely unstable club history. Of division ascents and descents. And with fans expecting that all this instability would be over within months. And anyone who knows football knows that there is no way to get immediate results.
PSG and Manchester City themselves took time to achieve the results they always wanted. And they were very upset because of this, they thought that years of instability in Coritiba would end in a few months. This contradicts Brazilian football, it’s cultural, people think that you just need to put money in and the results will come.
The biggest demonstration of this is that five months have passed since I left and Coritiba continues to have the same problems. Coach leaves, director enters, player leaves, others enter. This generates great internal instability.
In the press conference after Coritiba’s relegation, you didn’t talk about the mistakes that led to that situation. Now, outside the club, what were the club’s mistakes in 2023 that led to the downfall?
When you don’t get the expected result, everything is a mistake. I believe that all the decisions that were made were with the expectation and with the intention of looking for the best to try to keep Coritiba in Series A.
I’m not going to say a mistake, I think what happened is that, for what we needed to do this year, the SAF’s entry was late. Humanly and professionally, it was practically impossible in the July window to rebuild a team in Serie A. Being in last place in the championship and without the financial power that the other teams had.
It was impossible to convince players to embrace the idea of going to a team that is in last place and has a complete history of instability. We did what we could do and it wasn’t enough. And when we had to make specific signings, we had to rebuild a team and convince players. We had no financial conditions and were in last place in the championship, it is practically impossible to convince players in this sense.
You talked about the difficulty of bringing in players in the middle of the year. In the window In July, Coritiba brought the trio of foreigners, midfielder Samaris and strikers Jesé Rodríguez and Slimani, who in the end did not return. Why these hires?
These signings were a strategy that SAF had at that time to bring players from a different shelf, but who had to arrive in the middle of the championship. They didn’t have time to make the necessary adaptation.
And so, you could put Messi in Coritiba and it wouldn’t work. He could have signed Messi and put him in Coritiba’s attack, it wouldn’t have worked at that moment. With everything that was around that team, it was unlikely to work. This year, for example, other players arrived who are doing well elsewhere, and in Coritiba, and are unable to play.
What could it be that exists “around the team”?
It involves the instability around the club. The fan’s demands do not match the reality of everyday life. Coritiba SAF will get where it needs to be in time, calmly. It won’t happen overnight. There is a huge expectation for Coritiba to be champion, for the club to win and it doesn’t happen overnight. And whatever you call it, the result hasn’t come yet.
And how was your departure in December 2023? Do you intend to return to working in football?
My way out was simply when I started to see that immediacy is always ahead of anything and I don’t identify with that. Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve never seen football succeed thinking about immediacy. Football is for the medium and long term. It was both of their choices [Treecorp e eu]. Immediacy has affected Coritiba since SAF entered. The constant exchange of professionals is only negative for the consolidation of any project.
I don’t want to return to Brazilian football. I don’t identify with everything that involves football in the country today. Aggressiveness, lack of education and demands. Coritiba was my first and only experience in Brazilian football.
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