The shape of Manchester United’s regime under the co-ownership arrangement between Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazer family became more apparent with news that Omar Berrada, the chief football operations officer at City Football Group, has been poached from United’s crosstown rivals.
Berrada will be the successor to Richard Arnold, the CEO who departed at the end of 2023 as Ratcliffe’s 25% stake and control of sporting matters were confirmed. The Spaniard worked at Barcelona before in 2011 joining City Football Group, of which City are the prime club among the 12 owned by the Abu Dhabi-funded collective. He has been chief operating officer since 2016.
He will assume executive leadership of the football and business side of the club, sit on the club board of directors and report to Ratcliffe and the Glazers. His appointment is understood to be a joint decision between the Ineos owner and the Americans. He will take up the appointment in the summer.
A City statement said the club “understands his decision to look for a new challenge and he leaves with our thanks and best wishes”, while United said: “The club is determined to put football and performance on the pitch back at the heart of everything we do. Omar’s appointment is the first step on this journey.”
The news follows Sir Dave Brailsford, the mastermind behind Team Sky and its Ineos-Grenadiers successor, stepping away from cycling to focus on his new role at United. As chief sporting adviser to Ratcliffe, Brailsford is to concentrate on an audit into the club Ratcliffe paid £1.25bn to buy a quarter share of and take control of sporting affairs.
Brailsford founded Team Sky in 2010 and they won their first Tour de France in 2012, Bradley Wiggins taking the first of seven of eight editions up to 2019 by four riders, Chris Froome collecting four. The team collected five further Grand Tours under the Sky and Ineos banner that followed a rebrand in 2019.
The Derbyshire-born but Welsh-bred Brailsford has been team principal throughout that time.
Before Ratcliffe’s move for a stake in United, Brailsford was working with Nice, second in France’s Ligue 1 table. Ineos also owns the Swiss club Lausanne, Sir Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup sailing team and has a share in the Mercedes F1 team.
Since Ratcliffe’s deal with the Glazer family was confirmed on Christmas Eve, Brailsford has been a regular visitor to the Old Trafford directors’ box and was sitting with Sir Alex Ferguson and Ratcliffe during last Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham.
During a brief introduction to the press, Ratcliffe expected his deal for United to be completed by “early Feb” and said: “I have done a few exciting things, but this caps it all. There’s no question about that.”
Brailsford, an often controversial figure during his time on the frontline of road cycling and notorious for his belief in “marginal gains”, has been detailed with overhauling the distressed asset Ratcliffe has bought into. United’s latest quarterly figures, released this week, showed the Glazers’s debt has increased to £773m and that an additional £364m is owed in unpaid transfer fee instalments.
While Brailsford conducts his audit, Ratcliffe is understood to be willing to be patient with the United manager, Erik ten Hag, though the delay of his buy-in after 13 months of negotiation with the Glazers means there is unlikely to be investment during the January transfer window.
