Manchester United make drastic reduction to scouting network under Christopher Vivell

Manchester United make drastic reduction to scouting network under Christopher Vivell

Christopher Vivell permanently joined Man United earlier this year and the hierarchy have shown their trust in the former Chelsea technical director.

Vivell at Old Trafford

Manchester United have streamlined their scouting system to ten first-team scouts.

Christopher Vivell, the director of recruitment, has been empowered to oversee United's recruitment network since he arrived at the club last year.

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Vivell joined United last year, initially on a temporary basis, and helped oversee recruitment in the club's first summer since Sir Jim Ratcliffe became a minority shareholder in February 2024.

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United's scouting network was once so bloated it was in excess of 100 scouts but dozens have left the club across the two rounds of redundancies over the past 12 months.

Armand Benneker, Marco de Sisti, Roy Beukenkamp, Giuseppe Antonaccio, Ben McFarlan, Jose Mayorga, John Lambert, Norbert Düwel, Steve Head and Nicolas Cinalli are all still listed as United-employed first team scouts.

United sources say they want Vivell to take ownership of the reduced scouting network after years of poor business in the transfer market.

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The strategy follows the trend of several clubs scaling back their in-person scouting network in favour of recruitment analysts. Brighton, widely acclaimed for their recruitment strategy, let go of the majority of their scouts last year due to their dependence on a bespoke data model that owner Tony Bloom relies on.

Ratcliffe last season lamented that United are "still in the last century on data analysis". Former football director John Murtough championed a data-led approach to recruitment and hired Dominic Jordan as the head of data science. Both left within five months of the confirmation of Ratcliffe's stakeholding.

Vivell, 38, previously worked at RB Leipzig and Chelsea, where he was the technical director for only six months.

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