“My dream is to do great things for Athletic”

Mikel Gonzalez He monopolizes all the spotlights now at Athletic. The man from Bilbao was presented as the new sports director, CEO with the name he wants to use at the moment, after promoting the position of head of Sports Development that he has held since July 6, when he was appointed by the board of directors headed by Jon Uriarte.

gonzalez He thanked the Board “for betting on me five months ago and still today” and showed what it meant for him to reach this position. “It’s an incredible pride, I’m from Bilbao and all my life I’ve dreamed of being with Athletic. Five months ago I reached the dream. There’s a building near San Mamés with a huge motto that says ‘DREAM’. We will try to dream to do great things and take Athletic to the highest possible place”, he said.

Jon Uriarte continued the presentation in the press room of San Mamés with the presence of Txopo Iribarthe general director Jon Berasategimanagers Jon Salinas Y Xabi Alvarez and the members of the Lezama leadership Sergio Navarro, Xabi Arrieta, Eneko Vault Y Ander Vidal.

The president revealed the reasons for the choice. “There were some. Logically at first we thought he was the best person for this position. He has a profile that we love, very similar to what we are looking for in the campaign. He is a man of thirty odd years, we think he has enough experience but he is also very hungry to conquer the world. He is a person who combines experience in football but also outdoors. In fact, he has studies in technical architecture. This is something that as a board of directors we greatly value. We understand that the football part is important, but we believe it is important to have more,” said the leader.

References from people outside the Ibaigane club have been positive. “The evaluations we have Michael when we signed him to the campaign from other sources, they always did well. His popularity in the football industry is great and we have been able to verify in these months that this is a fact. Different people took part in the process, both the Board of Directors and the general director, the director of Lezama, of course ernesto valverde Y Xabi Arrieta, the director of women’s football. We all agreed that he is a figure who fits the project we are working on”, he added.

The Biscayan businessman also acknowledged that they gave great importance “to his sensitivity to new technologies and data analytics. It is a very important element” and they do not want someone who does not speak Spanish in reference to the possibility of recruiting someone from another country: “And of course the language, because in the selection process we interviewed people of many nationalities. and we understand that for a position like this, communication skills are essential”.

Finally, uriarte He highlighted the monetary issue: “We also considered the economic aspect, it fits what we are looking for, it is something that the institution can tolerate. It is an investment that fits the club’s accounts”.

The current board has confirmed in the campaign that they will build their entire project in the figure of a sports director with full powers. the chosen one is Carlos Avina, but the Mexican was cut within 24 hours due to some homophobic and macho comments posted on social networks. Since then it took them five months to choose their replacement. uriarte this His justification is this: “It is subjective that it is a long time. We invest the time we consider necessary to make a decision of great importance. commented here Valverde in a press conference, during this time we have not lost a job. Things have gone ahead and I think the work done in the field of sports is at the highest level. Michael It started with a few functions and over time it gets additional functions”.

Meanwhile, they opened the selection process to find someone from outside the institution. But that person is inside: “At this time we realized that we have the perfect person at home. It would be better to have a sports director the next day but this is something that we don’t have and at the moment we don’t have him. we prefer to give ourselves a reasonable period of time to make the best decision.