June 4 – Aston Villa have lured Francesco Calvo away from Juventus to become the club’s new President of Business Operations, starting at the club in July. He takes over from Chris Heck.
Calvo was responsible for all revenue streams at Juve, as well as relationships with key institutional stakeholders including FIFA, UEFA, ECA and Serie A. He has also held senior management positions at Barcelona and AS Roma.
“It is a great honour for me to join this Club at such an exciting time. Everyone in football knows the history of and passionate support for Aston Villa. In the past few years, we’ve seen this begin to be matched by success on the pitch and progress off it under the ambitious ownership of V Sports. I look forward to working with the Chairman, the Board, Unai Emery and everyone at Aston Villa to continue driving this great institution forward,” said Calvo.
Calvo joins at a time of growth at Villa, and expansion of the V Sports business, driven by stronger team performance and qualification for European club competitions.
The club has also announced plans to redevelop Villa Park’s North Stand, boosting the stadium’s capacity to more than 50,000 as they join the growing list of Premier League clubs undertaking a stadium expansions that will see it expand the capacity of its North Stand by approximately 7,500 seats, at a cost of about £100 million.
Since executive chairman Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens took control of the club in 2018, they have invested more than £400 million in transfers, along with the appointment of Unai Emery as manager in October 2022, which has triggered the club’s resurgence in performance.
Calvo will lead the club’s ambition to take the next steps commercially.
“We are pleased to welcome Francesco Calvo to Aston Villa. He has an outstanding track record at some of Europe’s biggest clubs and brings a huge amount of experience. Our ambition is for Aston Villa to be competing at the very top level in everything we do, both on and off the pitch. Francesco’s skills, relationships and experience will prove invaluable in making that ambition a reality,” said Sawiris.
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