‘It’s by design, not by luck’: Man Utd’s new CEO on the strategy behind his former club City’s treble win

Manchester City’s stars Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne are the envy of every football club. But Manchester United have raided their local rival for their new chief executive to restore the 20-times English champions to glory.

Omar Berrada faces the daunting task of leading United into a new era following Monaco-based billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s $1.3bn deal to buy a 25 per cent stake in the club that sets him up as a co-owner alongside the American Glazer family.

In an exclusive interview with the Financial Times at City’s Etihad campus in November last year, Berrada, who left his role as chief football operations officer at City Football Group and is now on gardening leave, laid out his operating principles that may hold clues to his approach at United.

The Paris-born executive, who has Moroccan roots, is swapping a club that last year achieved the “treble” — winning trophies for the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup in the same season — for one that has failed to win a league title since legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.

The 46-year-old’s challenge is to “re-establish Manchester United as a title-winning club” as announced by the team at the time of his unexpected appointment on January 20.

Berrada, who joined City from FC Barcelona, can draw on 20 years’ experience in football, spanning both commercial activities and football operations.

Rival clubs and fans attribute City’s success to the financial firepower of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family who has controlled the club since 2008. Critics point to the charges levelled by the Premier League, which has accused the club of breaching financial regulations. City has denied any wrongdoing.

The softly spoken Berrada is confident that City’s treble-winning campaign was “by design, not by luck”. He said with the right principles and strategy, “success on the pitch will come”.

Commercial growth is ‘underpinned’ by success on the pitch

Fans have criticised United for prioritising sponsorship deals instead of football, but Berrada’s hire marks the biggest sign yet that Ratcliffe and the Glazers have a plan to bridge the gap between the club’s lucrative commercial department and its underperforming football team.

“The commercial growth of the clubs is predicated or underpinned by success on the pitch,” said Berrada. “If you have a really good business strategy alongside it, then it just turbocharges the growth off the pitch.”

His view is starkly different from former United boss Ed Woodward, an ex-JPMorgan banker, who once told financial analysts that “playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business”.

Berrada looks set to inherit a task made more difficult by United’s struggle to qualify for next season’s lucrative Champions League. The team is behind the likes of Aston Villa, West Ham United and Brighton in the table, never mind league leaders Liverpool. Off the pitch, City’s annual revenues totalled £712mn in 2022-23, ahead of United’s £648mn.

Berrada, who oversaw 11 clubs including City in his prior role, emphasised that improving business performance can smooth out the cyclicality of football, allowing profits to be reinvested into the club, playing squad and facilities.

At City, he helped establish a structure that allowed the club “to make the right decisions and to take the emotions as much as we can out of those decisions,” Berrada said.

“Our job is to ensure that we’ve created a structure, this ecosystem around everything that we’re doing now to make it as consistent as possible so when there is a downwards cycle, we make it as short as possible”.

Have a football identity

Since Ferguson’s departure, United has been criticised for a squad created through big money signings ranging from defender Harry Maguire to Casemiro as well as the €95mn acquisition of Brazilian winger Antony.

Berrada stressed the importance of having a “football identity” on the pitch supported by a football director who understands a club’s playing style and has a “multiyear view” of what the squad needs to look like, and a coach and staff who believe in the approach.

Alongside City Football Group chair Khaldoon al-Mubarak, and former Barcelona colleagues chief executive Ferran Soriano and football director Txiki Begiristain, Berrada was a crucial member of the club’s leadership team credited by manager Pep Guardiola for backing his trophy-laden reign.

A solid identity underpins and guides City’s approach to buying and selling players, allowing it to identify talent years ahead and replenish squads as players age while saving money in the transfer market.

According to data aggregator transfermarkt.co.uk, United’s net spend in the five seasons to 2022-23 surpassed €600mn, second only to Chelsea. The Manchester club has failed to post a profit since before the Covid-19 pandemic and has typically struggled to generate big fees in the transfer market.

Berrada warned of the “slippery slope” that comes if a side starts to overpay clubs, players and agents in the quest for victory.

“If you have a very solid rationale as to why you’re offering the fee, the salary and the commission, they might not agree with it but they will accept it,” he said.

“Once you start overpaying then you lose that argument and that puts you in a much more difficult position to say to the next one, ‘I can only offer you this.’”

AI and data analytics will continue to shape football

As clubs continue to embrace technology to decipher the transfer market, Berrada has an eye on technology trends that could dictate the winners of tomorrow.

He predicted that artificial intelligence and data analytics will continue to shape football, including in-game tactics and player recruitment, although he stressed that it’s “not just about the data” but the “human understanding and the technical understanding of the game”.

“If you fast forward maybe another 10 years, data analytics, whether that’s driven by AI or something else, will start to have more and more influence,” he said. “I don’t see it taking over but I do see it as becoming more important.”