Amid our exciting progress on the pitch, Aston Villa’s President of Business Operations, Chris Heck, has a huge role to play in helping to sustain it in the coming years.
It’s been a thrilling journey thus far under Unai Emery, as we’ve gone from facing the threat of relegation, to qualifying for Europe and pushing to secure a top-four finish in the Premier League in the space of 18 months.
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The Villa boss has done an incredible job to transform the club and the mood around it on and off the pitch, and there is real optimism and excitement about the journey that he is capable of taking us on as he aims to build on his superb start.
However, the Villa owners are fully aware of the need to strengthen the club’s financial standing to put us in a position to be able to compete and continue to evolve into a club capable of challenging for major honours over a consistent period of time.
In turn, not only have they built a team around Emery on the sporting side to give him the tools he needs to take us where we want to go, but with the appointment of Heck and the infrastructure changes that came last year, there is a real push on the business side to turn us into a more competitive financial outfit too.
Heck has been relatively quiet since his appointment, and when he has spoken about the decisions we’re taking as a club, they haven’t always been universally popular amongst the Villa fanbase.
That said, he is now starting to communicate more and recently confirmed that we’ve doubled our revenue with three new shirt sponsor deals, and so it’s imperative that he continues to build on that impressive work.
As he notes himself in an interview he did this week with Gabby Agbonlahor for VillaTV, the business side of the club is essentially playing catch-up not only with the top clubs in the league, but also with the speed with which Emery is taking Villa forward on the pitch.
Firstly though, Heck moved to dismiss suggestions about a move away from Villa Park, with new, modernised stadiums seemingly a foundational piece for most other clubs in their strategy to become financially stronger, and he detailed the alternative route that the club will take to reach the same end goal.
“I love this place. I don’t think we should ever leave. Villa Park is iconic. It’s unique, and we can make it better,” Heck said in the interview for VillaTV. “This is our home and I think it’s the greatest home field advantage in the Premier League, so the plans are to stay at Villa Park.
“We are going to do a little bit of work. We are going to put in rail seating and we’re going to put in new seats, but we are not going to change any of the banners or anything else, other than just cleaning things up a little bit.
“Over the next two summers, we are going to continue to clean it up and reimagine all of our premium seating. We are working on a concert venue that is for pre- and post-game, and we’re going to have an entertainment zone. You’ll also have a new superstore. That’s the vision.
“I have spent time watching the Holte End every single game and it is truly extraordinary. What they bring to Villa Park makes this place so unique and so special, and what I’ve learned is that you know leave it alone. So we haven’t had that conversation [about moving]. There is nothing planned, and I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime.”
On that point about catching up, and ultimately matching and facilitating the progress we’re seeing from Emery and the players from a sporting perspective, Heck and his team are working tirelessly to make sure they’re doing their part for the overall vision for Villa that our ownership has to become increasingly competitive.
“We’re working around the clock trying to do sponsorship deals, changing the stadium to be beneficial to Financial Fair Play, find new revenue streams, take in our merchandise in-house and things of that nature,” Heck added. “It’s a factor which affects the product on the pitch. It affects every fan. We have a real focus on tackling that problem, but it’ll take a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of changes as we grow our business. We use the analogy with FFP that we have a train which is the football side, and a train on the business side.
“The train on the football side is going lightning fast and that’s a good thing. The business side has to catch that train.
“The growth of sponsorship has doubled, in the sense of our three big assets – the front of shirt, the kit provider and the sleeve sponsor. Those deals are massive. We’re really excited about getting those deals going in the summer, and we’ll have a foundation to build on this business with those sponsors. As we add on more sponsors, we add on more nuances with the stadium and premium seating and merchandising.
“It’s been a learning experience. I do a lot of listening and there’s still more to come from the listening factor. It’s been a lifetime of thrills, of watching this team evolve and this coach orchestrate something really special, and getting to appreciate how unique our fans are. They’re like no other.
“Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens have set their sights on the top. We’ve been talking about how our performance has been amongst the best, not only in the Premier League but in the world. That isn’t something that is a one and done – it’s a long-term plan. Unai is executing that plan. Our players are playing magnificent football and we need to follow that trend on the business side and continue to support them. Their growth and success has been so strong and earlier than we expected.”
It promises to be a major challenge for Heck and the club to bridge that gap to the more established sides who have benefited from higher revenues for significantly longer, while the introduction of new regulations and rules will perhaps hamper us in the coming years to make it an even more complicated task.
However, there is obviously a clear vision and strategy in place to transform Villa and help take us to the next stage in our evolution under these owners, through the team that they’ve assembled and with Emery at the helm.
The club’s ambitions are at an all-time high, but Heck is fully aware of the importance of his role in making our hopes become a reality, as Villa’s financial strength will ultimately dictate, or at least work in conjunction with, how competitive a squad we have and the subsequent level of success we’re able to achieve.