Andre Berta is ready to join the north London side as their new sporting director.
Who is Andre Berta?
After a in-depth recruitment process to find a good replacement for Edu Gasper, Andre Berta is elected as the new sporting director of Arsenal. Edu left the role in the last November. The club have looked at several other candidates to replace him. One of them was an internal one, Jason Ayto. He has filled the role on a temporary basis as an interim sporting director since Edu’s exit.
Berta is a great choice. He left Atletico Madrid in January 2024 after working 12 years as the sporting director there. He has agreed on a deal with Arsenal. Once all the paperwork is done with, he will be starting his role straight away. The coming summer transfer window is going to be a big one for the Gunners.
Berta’s transfers during his time in Spain
The 53-year-old Italian has been linked with Milan for a long time. Although, he has considered the Premier League as a potential next chapter. He has great experience of completing hard and expensive transfers. The latest example being Atletico’s moves for Julian Alvarez for £64 million from Manchester City. And another one of Conor Gallagher for £34 million from Chelsea in the last summer.
His most-known moves at the Spanish side includes the deals of Jan Oblak for €4 million from Benfica in 2014. He also played a key role when they signed Rodri from Villareal in 2019 for €25 million. He was a part of the re-signing of Antoine Griezmann in 2021 from Barcelona for €20 million. Barca signed the Frenchman for a huge price of €120 million in 2019.
Andre also oversaw some misses in transfers during his time at Madrid. They brought in Joao Felix from Benfica for a big price tag of €126 million in 2019. A year earlier, they signed Thomas Lemar for €60 million from Monaco in 2018. Other few poor transfers being the ones of Alvaro Morata (from Chelsea for €58m in 2020) and Diego Costa (from Chelsea in 2017 for €55m).
As featured on GoonerNews.com
