- Txiki Begiristain is reportedly set to leave Man City at the end of the season
- The long-serving director of football has a close relationship with Pep Guardiola
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Manchester City’s renowned sporting director Txiki Begiristain is leaving the club at the end of the season.
Begiristain was integral to the appointment of Pep Guardiola in 2016 and his working relationship with the manager has seen City dominate the Premier League and win the Treble.
Begiristain, who is expected to retire after turning 60 in August, has been the mastermind behind overwhelmingly positive transfer business since joining the club in 2012. Girona’s Quique Carcel is believed to be in the frame for the role as City embark on a new era.
Mail Sport revealed last summer that the former Barcelona winger’s time at the helm was coming to a close and that his departure would be linked to Guardiola’s own future.
Begiristain’s departure plan was to make sure not to directly coincide with Guardiola leaving – but to come at around the same time.
Man City’s director of football Txiki Begiristain is set to leave the club after this season
He has a close relationship with Pep Guardiola, who he first met playing at Barcelona
That City are looking at quickly appointing a new sporting director to work alongside him for a handover period offers a potential buffer to that possibility and the chance for the successor to learn the ropes.
Guardiola’s contract expires at the end of the season and the Catalan usually communicates a decision on his future during the November international break.
Sources have expected him to bid farewell next summer but he is yet to confirm his next steps.
He is a close friend of Pep Guardiola, having been the sporting director who appointed him at Barcelona after the sacking of Frank Rijkaard. They first met as team-mates at Barca.
‘Txiki is the key to all of this,’ Guardiola said years later on his appointment at City in 2016. ‘When nobody else would take a risk on me, when maybe 3 per cent of the people at Barca believed in me, he was the one who insisted on my appointment to the first team. None of this would have been possible without him.’
He also said: ‘If Txiki worked for Chelsea, I would probably have called Chelsea,’ Guardiola said in 2016.’
He has been instrumental in bringing in some of their most iconic players, such as Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker, Bernardo Silva, Rodri, and Ederson.
Mail Sport exclusively reported in May that Guardiola is expected to leave the 2023 Treble winners.
Begiristain advocated for Guardiola to become Barca’s manager and helped bring him to City
City will give Guardiola space to make a final decision on his future – and want the most successful boss in their history to extend his stay after 15 major trophies, including delivering a first Champions League.
Asked recently about leaving, he said: ‘I’m not going to talk about this subject. When it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.’
During Begiristain’s time at the club, they have won six Premier League titles, a Champions League, two FA Cups, six EFL Cups, and the Club World Cup.
While other senior figures such as former chief football operations officer Omar Berrada have come and gone – in his case taking up the CEO role at City, Begiristain has been part of the club’s fabric for over a decade.
