Manchester United appoint Sansoni as new Director of Data
Written by
Ian Westbrook
May 27, 2025
Michael Sansoni has been appointed as the new Director of Data at Manchester United.
Sansoni moves from the Mercedes Formula 1 team into his first job in football and has now been in post for a month. His appointment comes amidst the current round of restructuring and redundancies at the club.
Sansoni replaces Dominic Jordan, who exited the club last summer after just over two years in the role.
Jordan had to build up United’s data department more or less from scratch, having been tasked with “driving forward the club’s use of data to help players and staff deliver success on the pitch” when he arrived in March 2022.
Jordan built a first analytics department for the club, bringing in Head of Data Operations Chris Shumba, Machine Learning Scientist Andrew Davies, Decision Scientist Alex Kleyn and Data Scientist Max Adema.
Senior Data Scientist Nick Grimshaw and Football Strategy and Reporting Analyst Jacob Dunlop are now also on the team.
INEOS became minority shareholders in United five months before Jordan left and are also a principal partner of the Mercedes F1 team, where Sansoni worked for 11 years.
A self-confessed F1 fan, Sansoni was Mercedes’ Senior Performance Simulation Engineer (Trackside) during eight World Championships.
He said on LinkedIn: “As someone who grew up watching Formula 1, I could never have imagined I’d one day have the privilege of working with Lewis Hamilton, let alone contributing in the team’s success.
“It’s been an incredible journey – challenging, intense, and above all, a privilege to work alongside such a talented group of people.”
Despite the work of Jordan’s department, in March this year United’s minority shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe told the club’s former defender turned pundit Gary Neville that “we haven’t got” data analysis.
He went on to say: “The absolutely number one issue for the club….is to get recruitment right. That needs data analysis and all that type of stuff, which we haven’t got, as you know. Some of the best clubs have.”
United have also appointed Dan Nichol as a Data Science Consultant, while Performance Nutrionist Thomas Maynard has announced on LinkedIn that he is leaving the club.
Earlier this week, it was announced that Head of Performance Analysis Paul Brand and Director of Insights and Innovation Richard Hawkins are leaving the club after combined service of almost 30 years.
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