Former Newcastle United midfielder Hugo Viana is set to be confirmed as Txiki Begiristain’s successor as Manchester City director of football.Begiristain is set to leave City at the end of the 2024-25 season after a highly-successful spell at the Etihad Stadium since his appointment in 2012. Earlier this week it was reported that City had made Viana their top target to replace Begiristain and now Mail Online have claimed that a deal has been agreed.
Viana currently works at Sporting CP as director of football and has overseen several significant transfers in recent seasons to help the club claim a Portuguese league title last season. Sporting host Man City in the Champions League group stage next month.
Viana’s signings of Viktor Gyökeres, Ousmane Diomande and Morten Hjulman as well as the £10million appointment of manager Ruben Amorim from Braga have been instrumental in Sporting’s recent return to dominance.
Viana is expected to join Manchester City in 2025, initially working alongside Begiristain during a handover period before taking over next summer.
It will be the 41-year-old’s first permanent return to England since leaving Newcastle United as a player around 20 years ago.
Viana joined Newcastle from Sporting in 2002 for £8.5million which broke a club record paid for a teenager at the time. The record has only just been broken by Newcastle with the signing of Lewis Hall from Chelsea this summer for £28million.
Viana still holds the record for Newcastle’s youngest-ever Champions League goalscorer as he found the net in the famous 3-2 win at Feyenoord at age 19. But that would be one of only a few highlights of his spell on Tyneside as he made just 56 appearances for the club before spending the last two seasons under contract on loan back at Sporting and then Valencia, whom he joined permanently in 2006.
