Source: Disclosure / EC Bahia
With the incorporation of Bahia into the City Group, many doubts are raised about how the Esquadrão’s operations work in terms of signings, especially when deals are done with other clubs that are part of the Arab conglomerate.
During the interview with the Futebol S/A podcast, football director Cadu Santoro gave details about the operation and autonomy of each club and how players come or can leave Bahia for partner teams.
According to the tricolor leader, there is no imposition by the “headquarters” in Manchester.
“Each club has its own operation, its Football Director, CEO and its entire structure. In Manchester, there is a central office where decisions are discussed, but each club has the autonomy to make its local decision. The decision does not come from there to here, it is an unimposed decision”.
Santoro also gave an example of how players are hired by Bahia, whether they are from Group teams or not.
He mentioned that the amount paid by Bahia, in turn, always has the opinion of the Manchester office, to define how much it makes sense to pay to have an athlete.
“As an example, if Bahia sells a player for 2 million dollars and after three years, we understand that his value has fallen and the club asks for a higher price, for us it doesn’t make any sense, even though I understand what the player will hand it over to me, but the business as a whole. When we evaluate with the central office, what is the valuation that Grupo City places on this player, you arrive at a denominator that it doesn’t make sense for this value”, he said.
Although he was not mentioned by Santoro, attacking midfielder Tiago Palacios, formerly of Montevideo City Torque, is an example of the autonomy that each club has when negotiating its players.
Bahia tried to sign the Uruguayan player between December and January. As a partner, Esquadrão had “preference” in the deal, but the Uruguayan team closed negotiations with Estudiantes, from Argentina.
Implementation of City Group processes in Bahia
“Manchester has this global operation, and I have weekly meetings with different areas, but decisions are local. The important thing is that when we talk about multiclubs, we have the responsibility to implement processes in which everyone uses the same ones, for example when a player suffers an injury, the protocol of what that player will do, recovery time. We changed the clinic where we do MRIs, because it now needs to be done using the British classification and previously Bahia did not use it. These are details that are not seen in everyday life. We still don’t have the same equipment as Manchester, but the protocol is the same. Doctors here debate with doctors there, there are exchanges. This happens all the time. There are the scout meetings, the doctors meeting… We look at the result, which is important and fundamental, but the number of processes we implemented in year zero are things that we will see more of in the long term”.
“Bahia today, within the multiclubs, not only football, but HR, IT, marketing, is fully implemented in the City Group. All the directors, Raul as CEO, all have a global line”, concluded Santoro.
