Atlético de Madrid on Tuesday announced Mateu Alemany’s arrival as the club’s new Director of Men’s Professional Football in a major move to strengthen the club’s front office.
Alemany will work alongside General Director of Football Carlos Bucero, reporting to him and to chief executive Miguel Ángel Gil. He will oversee the day-to-day sporting operations of the first team — and Atlético Madrileño — that once fell under Andrea Berta’s purview.
According to the club’s statement, Alemany has already started his new gig: earlier on Tuesday, he met with Diego Simeone and he met Atlético’s players at their Majadahonda training complex. Simeone and the players who are not injured/playing with their national teams will soon travel to Libya for a friendly against Inter Milan on Friday night.
Alemany is a highly-respected executive with a lengthy, fruitful career in Spanish football. Trained as an attorney, Alemany rose to prominence as the sporting director — and later club president — at Mallorca. Under Alemany’s direction, Mallorca qualified for the Champions League in 1999, signed Samuel Eto’o in 2000, and won the Copa del Rey in 2003.
Alemany joined Valencia in 2017, where he worked alongside Marcelino (now the Villarreal head coach) and under embattled owner Peter Lim. Valencia achieved consecutive fourth-place finishes during Alemany’s two-and-a-half year stint; in his first summer at Mestalla, he notably signed Gonçalo Guedes for a club-record fee and secured Geoffrey Kondogbia on an initial loan from Inter Milan, with a €25 million obligation to buy.
Maximization of resources was the name of Alemany’s game when he moved to FC Barcelona in 2021. Though Barcelona were (are) riddled with financial problems, Alemany still laid the groundwork for Barça’s title-winning teams of 2023 and 2025. In the summer of 2022, when president Joan Laporta sold off chunks of the club’s future media rights to give Alemany the margin to sign top players, Alemany responded by clinching deals for Raphinha, Jules Koundé, and Robert Lewandowski.
Alemany left Barcelona in 2023 following a dispute with new sporting director Deco, and Atlético were interested in hiring him before Bucero’s appointment as director of football in 2024. Now, Bucero and Alemany will work together in a restructured front office that is continuing to fortify ahead of the club’s ownership changing hands.
