Ferran Soriano profile

I was a little busy over the weekend so was unable to post up what the Catalan papers here in Barcelona have reported about Ferran Soriano's appointment as Man City's new CEO. Soriano will assume the role on the 1st of September and will work closely with Tom Glick who was appointed as Man City's new commercial director.

It didn't take too much digging around to realise what Ferran Soriano was headhunted for. His work at Barcelona as VP in increasing turnover and commercial monies will have been what interested Man City rather than his ill-starred role in Spanair's collapse.

Ferran Soriano, within a 5 year span, increased Barcelona's finances from 123m euros turnover and a 73m euro loss to 308m euros turnover and a 88m euro profit. These are excellent numbers were necessary considering the size of Barcelona's debt.

Having lived in Barcelona for a period of time and having witnessed just how visible the Barcelona brand it's fair to say he did this with a strong emphasis on commercial interests and Barcelona branding.

Barcelona have had success with numerous sponsors too. The Nike deal and the huge Qatari Foundation which is worth £25 million per year over a 6 year period are Main partners. Various other commercial partners include the premium partners La Caixa (huge Spanish bank), Audi, Estrella and Turkish Airlines. Official partners include Movistar, Etisalat, Herbalife, Seiko, Coca Cola. This is a fair list of sponsors.

I expect Ferran Soriano's inbox will include orders to grow Man City's commercial prospects exponentially with FFP considerations looming on the horizon. Avid academy observers will also hope that the academy system may be overhauled aswell, as was discussed by the MCFC Reserves and Academy twitter feed.

I would assume the very public problems between Mancini and Brian Marwood would also be worthy of some of Ferran's time and attention. I thought the last paragraph from El Pais's Catalan edition was of interest.

The Manchester City could now recover its old proposal to sign as sports director Txiki Begiristan.

We shall wait and see. Brian Marwood's position could well be improved with a strong showing in the final days of this transfer window.