christopher vivell when technical director at chelsea

Who is Christopher Vivell? Manchester United’s Director of Recruitment

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Football has changed a lot in the last 20 years, and that goes for Manchester United, too.

Gone are the days when a manager would oversee transfers, aided by a handful of scouts and a few meetings with the chairman. These days, there are entire departments dedicated to recruitment, and a leadership team who all have a say – not to mention job titles that can muddy the waters.

Christopher Vivell is a name that Manchester United fans have been hearing more and more about since his arrival in 2024, and while “Director of Recruitment” sounds straightforward enough, the role is more layered than it first appears.

He is by no means one of the loudest names at the club, and that’s probably by design. Vivell has been placed just out of sight, able to beaver away and do his job without the personal scrutiny of the press who tend to focus on the likes of Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada. Considering he was brought in to help change the club’s recruitment strategy, it makes sense to keep him out of the spotlight.

For years, Manchester United’s ‘strategy’ seemed to be: find the biggest names available, pay over the odds for them, and give them massively inflated wages.

If you look at our signings since Vivell joined though, a different picture is emerging.

Background

Christopher Vivell was a player himself, although he only ever played at lower league German sides.

After retiring as a player, he became a scout for TSG Hoffenheim, before moving on to become head scout at Red Bull Salzburg. This is where his career began to accelerate, because it was within the Red Bull system that he made his name. After five years scouting at Salzburg, Vivell went to RB Leipzig to become their technical director.

If you look at what he did here, it tells you quite a lot about why Manchester United wanted him.

The model was built around identifying players early, backing physical and technical upsides, developing them, then moving them on when the time was right. A few examples of players who went through the Red Bull system during Vivell’s time there include:

  • Erling Haaland
  • Karim Adeyemi
  • Dominik Szoboszlai
  • Benjamin Sesko

All of whom were sold for big money, to big clubs, in their very early 20s.

Of course, Vivell wasn’t solely responsible for the fortunes of these players – recruitment doesn’t work like that – but he was a big part of what was going on there at the time.

Christopher Vivell left Red Bull for Chelsea in 2022, but was only there for 7 months before being put on gardening leave. However, that says more about Chelsea at the time than it does about Vivell. They were constantly restructuring and it seems like the role he took changed before his feet were even under the desk.

Then, as part of United’s restructure, Vivell was brought in on an interim basis in 2024, before being made permanent shortly after.

What Does He Actually Do?

Christopher Vivell’s job is still scouting, but that word alone doesn’t really do him justice.

In a nutshell, the manager and Jason Wilcox will come together to decide the footballing needs of the club, then Christopher Vivell and his team will turn those needs into a reliastic plan.

However, he isn’t just handed a shopping list. If the club says, “We need a tall striker who can run in behind,” Vivell’s job is not just to say “Benjamin Sesko exists.” He has to go into every detail of the potential transfer:

  • Does the player know the league?
  • Will the player fit the culture?
  • Is he physically suited to Premier League football?
  • Does he have the technical level United need?
  • Can he handle the pressure of playing at Old Trafford?
  • Is he at the right age for what the squad needs?
  • Is he ready to improve the team now, or is he more of a development signing?
  • What does the data say about his output?
  • Are his strengths repeatable, or are they being inflated by the system he currently plays in?
  • What is his injury record like?
  • What is his character like?
  • How does he respond to setbacks?
  • Is he affordable?
  • Is he available?
  • Does he want the move?
  • Would the selling club negotiate?
  • Are there better-value alternatives?

These are just some of the questions that need to be answered.

To answer these questions, Vivell will use a combination of software, personal research (the eye test), and some good old fashioned phone calls to mutual connections.

In terms of each player’s footballing abilities, Vivell and his department will use a combination of:

  • Data Platforms – Widely used industry tools include Wyscout/Hudl, StatsBomb, Opta, and SkillCorner. These let you see all manner of stats, make side by side comparisons on specific info, and do specific searches.
  • Video Analysis – Stats aren’t everything. A player might have poor pressing stats because he plays for a team who don’t press, for example. You have to watch them in action.
  • Live Scouting – This still happens. The camera doesn’t catch everything, so having someone there in person means they can report on every detail: body language off the ball, reactions to mistakes by themselves and others, how they behave after a loss or a win, etc.
  • Internal Models – Most big clubs have their own internal systems too. These are pretty secretive but they will have been developed with Vivell’s input.

As you can see, it’s a massive job, and because the footballing landscape is always evolving, he has to constantly keep up to date with top targets, potential targets, back up targets, emergency scenario targets, not to mention finding out about players who aren’t getting headlines yet before anyone else.

He will go back to Wilcox and the manager with his suggestions, and they will discuss them as a group before deciding who they are going to move forward with. That’s when negotiations start, but finances and contracts aren’t Christopher Vivell’s area.

Impact

Senne Lammens Signing

We can see the impact Vivell is having at Old Trafford already.

Look at some of the absolute bargains we have signed since he arrived in July 2024: Ayden Heaven, Patrick Dorgu, and Senne Lammens who was the Premier League’s official signing of the season in 2025/26.

The marquee signings under his watch have worked out too. No one would argue that Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo or Benjamin Sesko were anything other than successful signings, and we didn’t overpay for them either.

Vivell is able to identify targets that fit the brief on multiple levels, and the club is already seeing the benefit. Would we be back in the Champions League without the players I just mentioned? I don’t think so.

If the club can continue in this way, we will have a squad filled with elite ability and elite mentality players. What’s more, we won’t be bankrupting ourselves to get or keep them.

Again, this is not all entirely Christopher Vivell’s doing. There is a much cleaner, more sensible structure at the top now, and these people are working well together. They are not only being selective about who to approach and how much to pay for them, but they are doing an equally good job of passing on names that look tempting on paper, but who come with baggage.

Instead of headline grabbing transfer fees and star names that never quite work out, we are seeing quiet competence at work. I’m here for it, and long may it continue.