Sunderland AFC is to welcome Simon Wilson to the club as chief football officer. Wilson will join the Black Cats on January 1st, 2017, after 10 years at Manchester City.

The new role will support chief executive Martin Bain and manager David Moyes to create and drive a cohesive approach to all areas of the club’s football operations.

During his time at Manchester City, Wilson held the position of director of football services, working across the City Group family of clubs. Prior to this, he spent four years at Southampton FC.

Sunderland AFC chief executive Martin Bain said: “In Simon, we are bringing someone to the club who has highly impressive track record of putting the building blocks in place in order to give clubs the best chance of achieving success.

“Harnessing his knowledge and experience in developing effective football infrastructures at the highest level, will give us a great platform from which to re-define our approach to the fundamental areas of the club such as scouting, recruitment, medical services, player pathways and youth development.

“Simon will play an important part in driving our re-building process, and helping us to achieve our aim of making the football club stronger in the future."

Speaking about his new role, Wilson said: “I am excited by the opportunity to join a club that is embarking on a journey of development and improvement. My role will be to ensure that we have the best practices, systems and people in place in order to give the club the best platform to achieve its goals.

“There is a great team of people at the club and I want to galvanise the good work that I know is already being done, in order to ensure that we are doing everything we can to support the manager and chief executive in their aim of building a better football club.

“I worked with David Moyes many years ago at Preston, he is a highly experienced and respected manager and I am looking forward to linking up with him again, and working with the chief executive, both of whom share a common vison on how to take the club forward so we can give the fans and everyone associated with Sunderland a club and a team to be proud of”.