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Former Everton chief Keith Wyness has claimed that he is surprised that Manchester United have decided to appoint an in-house football finance manager.
Wyness was CEO at Goodison Park between 2004 and 2009 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs.
New part owners, INEOS, have already implemented wide-ranging changes behind the scenes at United since their takeover was publicly announced in December.
The petro-chemicals company has appointed Omar Berrada as the new CEO of the club and is in the process of trying to wrangle Dan Ashworth from Newcastle to be the new sporting director.
New board member, Sir Dave Brailsford, has also began an audit at the club to figure out in painstaking detail what exactly has gone wrong over the last few years.
One of the issues that the club is facing due to previous mismanagement is difficulty sticking to new financial regulations that have been put in place for next season.
As a result, INEOS are poised to hire a football finance expert who will help the club in its efforts to ensure compliance with profit and sustainability rules (PSR).
However, the idea of appointing an in-house finance guru has not been well received by everyone.
Speaking to Football Insider, Wyness argues “I’m very surprised. From my experience, my financial director and sporting director should be able to get together and give me recommendations on where we are”.
“I did bring in a specialist once to advise on where we stood, but it becoming a full-time position does surprise me”.
However, the former Everton man does see the logic of asking for help due to the complex new world of PSR.
“But we’re seeing points deductions, and we know what points mean to clubs. The impact goes way beyond the table. For a public company like Man United, I understand they need a specialist. I’m just surprised it’s a full-time, in-house position”.
“I thought they may outsource it to a consultant, but it’s showing how much focus is being placed on this”.
Wyness claims the real danger is that if they are still found guilty of failing to comply with the new regulations, they have no excuses.
“However, if they do appoint someone and still breach the rules – they’ve got little legs to stand on”.
“The internal politics this person will have will be pretty important, but it could come back to bite them”.
There is no doubt that PSR is a complex world and United fans will just have to hope at this stage that INEOS know what they are doing as they aim to have a busy and successful transfer window this upcoming summer to kickstart their rein in earnest.
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