Not true at all. Braida is our expert advisor. He has deep ties into Italian football. Basically, if a top player farts on the field in that league, he knows about it first. Puts his sunglasses on, takes a flight to Milano, or Turin, or Rome, or Naples, and fights there in trenches with other expert advisors from all sorts of great clubs to land the players we want.
It's how we got Jan Claude Van Digne. Rumors say he proposed Zappacosta to Bartomeu. But Barto refused to give the green light because he thought Zappacosta looked like a rat, and more people would start to realise he himself looks like one.