Paco Casal is a Uruguayan businessman. Emerging as a football agent, Casal quickly gained full relevance in his country’s market. He is the owner of the company Tenfield and the television channel GolTV.
History
Born in São Paulo, at just seven months old, Casal moved to Montevideo with his family. He was a ball boy at Estadio Centenario and, according to his own description, a “mediocre” footballer, who in 1968 joined the youth divisions of Defensor Sporting. At the age of 19, he was transferred to Atlético de Madrid and later to Racing de Santander.
Player representative
In 1980, while still a player for Vasco, Casal was injured and at the same time received the opportunity that would change his life: his friend (footballer) Juan Ramón Carrasco asked to be represented by him in a negotiation. This would begin a successful career as a player representative. By the late 1980s, he was representing the best players in the country (among them, Carlos Aguilera, Rubén Sosa, Enzo Francescoli, Hugo De León, and Nelson Gutiérrez). In the 1990s, Casal had almost a monopoly on the representation of Uruguayan players, as “everyone wanted to be represented by Paco.”
The owner of Uruguayan football
Casal is considered the top businessman in Uruguay. A former football player, he developed his power as an agent for some of the national football team’s players and began to expand his business. In the 1990s, his power was such that he virtually became the owner of football in that country, having ties with the country’s top players and being the owner of Tenfield, the company he founded with Enzo Francescoli and Nelson Gutiérrez (two of his former athletes), which holds the broadcasting rights for the Uruguayan Championship.
Television entrepreneur
In the mid-2000s, Casal announced that he would gradually leave player representation to focus entirely on his television projects: Tenfield, and especially GolTV, a Miami-based channel that would broadcast throughout Latin America. The world of football player representation in Uruguay was now open to new entrepreneurs.
Today, Casal’s power tries to cross borders as he attempted to enter Argentine football, where he clashed with the figure of Julio Grondona. However, in 2011, he managed to obtain the rights to the international tournament organized by CONMEBOL, in which Grondona had a lot of influence.
Casal is also trying to expand his business to other countries like Peru, where he is attempting to secure a deal for the television rights of at least six of Peru’s most representative clubs, such as Universitario de Deportes, Alianza Lima, Sporting Cristal, Sport Boys, FBC Melgar, among others.