Christian Purslow has been appointed as Aston Villa’s Chief Executive within the last week as the Midlands club become the next part of the journey in the footballing world that he has embarked on.
Purslow comes from a business-centric background heading up various businesses across the country or playing a key role as managing director like he did with companies such as DB Capital Partner and MidOceon Partners, the latter of which he co-founded.
It was this experience gained in the managing director role of these firms that allowed him to work his way into football when he took that exact title at Liverpool in June 2009. He was behind the negotiations as Liverpool struck a £80m deal with Standard Chartered to become their shirt sponsor, taking over from Carlsberg. Purslow then helped arrange the £300m sale of Liverpool from the hands of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, to Fenway Sports Group who still own Liverpool to this day. Once the deal took place, Purslow left Liverpool.
He returned to football business in October 2014, this time working for Liverpool’s title contenders at the time, Chelsea. Purslow’s role as Head of Global Commercial activities meant he was in charge in negotiating with the likes of Nike, Yokohama tyres and Carabao amongst others with the former two deals reportedly exceeding the £1bn pound mark together.
Having left Chelsea in early 2017, Purslow will now oversee everything at Villa as Chief Executive, not just on the business and marketing front, as he certainly has the negational skills to do so as seen from his time at Chelsea.
Villa had taken their time to consider the options following Keith Wyness’ departure in June resultant of Villa’s financial situation after missing out on promotion to the Premier League. Eventually, they did opt for Purslow and made sure they got it right as they aren’t exactly in a state of financial wellbeing at this moment in time.
Purslow will have a job on his hands to help Villa out of their financial turmoil, which could be eased by some adept arrangements with other companies, and a more wise mind in charge of how they spend their future in the future.
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