Manchester City have announced the formal departure of long serving sporting director Txiki Begiristain, marking another step in the club’s new chapter.
Begiristain, the former Barcelona player and executive, joined Man City in 2012 and has had a huge hand in more than a decade of success for the blue half of Manchester.
With Man City winning seven Premier League titles, two FA Cups and the Champions League on his watch—among 21 major trophies in 13 years, as well as recruiting Pep Guardiola and legendary players like Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and İlkay Gündoğan, the club proudly claims the Spaniard to be one of the sport’s “greatest directors of football.”
His departure was initially confirmed in October 2024, with Man City confirming at the same time that Hugo Viana had already been chosen as Begiristain’s successor.
Viana, familiar with the Premier League from his days as a Newcastle United midfielder, started working alongside Begiristain in April and now takes full control with the new season about to begin.
As a pair, they oversaw six new signings across June and July at a cost of just over £150 million ($198.5 million), with £27 million ($35.7 million) goalkeeper James Trafford the last of the new arrivals. It remains to be seen whether fully handing over at this point of the summer means that fans should not expect further new signings to be made before the Sept. 1 deadline.
Viana takes over with a reputation as one of Europe’s brightest young football executives. The 42-year-old has spent the last seven years as sporting director at Sporting CP, the club he first joined at 15 and started his professional career. In Lisbon, Viana oversaw the arrival of Ruben Amorim in 2020 and worked in tandem with the now Manchester United head coach building Sporting’s first Primeira Liga winners since 2001–02—before even Cristiano Ronaldo had reached the first team.
Sporting were crowned Portuguese champions again in 2023–24 and 2024–25.
Viana’s biggest transfer market coup was the capture of Viktor Gyökeres in 2023, plucking the Swede from England’s EFL Championship. In the weeks following Viana’s move to Manchester, Sporting managed to negotiate a big money deal with Arsenal to triple their investment.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Man City Confirm Departure of Senior Official As New Chapter Begins.
