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Chris Heck - President of Business Operations


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People talking on here like Heck has done something incredible getting Adidas involved. In reality I don't think it would have taken a massive effort or expertise from him, considering nassef has influence at the company and we are getting a lot more attention from the media because of the onfield success. Getting involved with Aston Villa is quite an easy sell at the moment. 

Edited by Made In Aston
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24 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

People talking on here like Heck has done something incredible getting Adidas involved. In reality I don't think it would have taken a massive effort or expertise from him, considering nassef has influence at the company and we are getting a lot more attention from the media because of the onfield success. Getting involved with Aston Villa is quite an easy sell at the moment. 

...  you sound like my boss at work.

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2 hours ago, Made In Aston said:

People talking on here like Heck has done something incredible getting Adidas involved. In reality I don't think it would have taken a massive effort or expertise from him, considering nassef has influence at the company and we are getting a lot more attention from the media because of the onfield success. Getting involved with Aston Villa is quite an easy sell at the moment. 

So when he does something good he gets no credit, when he does something bad we double down on him? 

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1 hour ago, thabucks said:

Nowadays sadly that is the  VT way …  That and opinions spouted repeatedly and put across as fact and shit gifs… Gone are the days of reasoned debate. Bring back Scuba Steve ! 

Yeah, and I blame it on the parental generation of these young 'uns. And that gen ... is ... I'll be back in a minute.

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23 hours ago, fruitvilla said:

I sincerely hope this is not true. As a director/owner at Adidas and owner at Aston Villa, he has a conflict of interest here. The decision may well be in the best interests of both companies; but ideally, Sawiris should keep this business deal at a barge pole distance.

I think Nassef facilitating an opening for negotiation and sponsorship could hardly be considered some type of big conflict as long as he isn't personally benefitting financially.  

I mean it's not like our owners are a state-run entity that also happen to have a majority ownership of an airline that has "sponsored" the stadium, training ground, shirt adverts, made it the "official airline" of the club and plastered every advertising board with their own state-owned company.... Take a bow Etihad.... 

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Of course Heck doesn't get credit for this FFS.

Unai Emery does.

You think Heck would magically be able to get a massive deal if we were sat in 12th. It's all on the on pitch going.

We'll probably get around 3x the amount if we do make UCL.

Edited by Tomaszk
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31 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Of course Heck doesn't get credit for this FFS.

Unai Emery does.

You think Heck would magically be able to get a massive deal if we were sat in 12th. It's all on the on pitch going.

We'll probably get around 3x the amount if we do make UCL.

So credit really goes to those involved in recruiting Unai Emery.

Come back Mr Purslow, all is forgiven.

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14 minutes ago, Don_Simon said:

So credit really goes to those involved in recruiting Unai Emery.

Come back Mr Purslow, all is forgiven.

If only for the badge (which I don't love, but it's at least not horrendous), it's a shame he didn't stick around longer.

He would have had the chance of course but couldn't get over himself and butt out of football decisions. Didn't want to know anymore when told he'll have no input to player recruitment.

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1 hour ago, FLVillan said:

I think Nassef facilitating an opening for negotiation and sponsorship could hardly be considered some type of big conflict as long as he isn't personally benefitting financially.  

You don't think it could be problematic for a shareholder and board member of Company A to be involved in conversations about that organisation paying money to another company, which he happens to part-own?

Unless Sawiris was kept at arm's length from all of these conversations, it looks like textbook conflict to me. His duty as an Adidas board member is to act in the interests of Adidas. Not to further the interests of Aston Villa.

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I think the heat people are putting on Heck is mostly unfair. What do people expect him to do? 

He joins the club with a clear remit. First thing he's faced with is the Club crest problem. The new crest doesn't work for differentiating Villa and the club brand which is core to our marketing and revenue growth. Our brand is our history, our unique classic ground, it;s founding the football league, it's the older club in the Premier League, it's our unique name and club colours. The shield badge which we've had since 1990 and had in our past is key to that. So the decision on the club crest is it needs to be the Shield. So what should he do?

Next the North Stand, let's say Emery is against the idea of losing a whole stand for 2 years from end of this season as it will impact the atmosphere at Villa. The costs of the work have gone up a lot due to inflation, we've got the transport issues that have rumbled on. Plus the capacity is only increased by 8,000 once the new stand is built. An alternative proposal can increase capacity by up to 3,000 while work on other parts of the ground to improve fan experience and boost revenue. The North Stand work can be revisited (and it will need to be). So decision is need make this change for the best of the club.  So what should he do?

We have Castore problems with the shirt, we need to get out of our deal with them early. We need to replace them, the time is perfect as the team are doing well, Newcastle have got a lucrative deal with Adidas and Heck works to secure us a new long term deal with them too. Big boost to revenue and club profile if we are in the Elite A category.

We have got new strategic investors too with Ataros, who are big in media side, they will hopefully open up more channels for the club brand and opportunities to grow the revenue. 

At the end of the day, the best thing for Aston Villa and the reason Heck was brought in was to grow the clubs commercial side which has been massive underperformer and is the no1 barrier to us breaking into a new Big 8 and becoming a top side that can compete year over year with the big boys in the Premier League. 

I am sure all the decisions made have been well thought through and I back him on them because I think he's doing a great job so far when hos job is clear. Grow our commercial revenue. Capitalise on the opportunity we have right now with the team performing so well and grow the commercial side. Look what Spurs achieved when they had a good side under Poch, Levy grew the commerical side of the club , secured long lasting deals which keep revenue flowing and always allow them to compete financially with the big boys. 

Heck inherited problems and decisions he disagreed with. Decisions made by the team who failed to grow our revenue to where we lagged other smaller PL rivals. I think he's showing leadership by being decisive in what he's doing because he and his team know how to build up our revenue. I'm personally really excited by what's happening, the Adidas deal is the tip of the iceberg I hope and we'll see other new deals spring up

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6 minutes ago, nepal_villan said:

Presuming this is a proper apparel sponsorship deal, do we believe it would have happened without Sawiris being our owner? 

Why hadn’t it happened before? Before Kappa and before Castore, we were supposed to be in a long term deal with Castore. 

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9 minutes ago, MellbergsBeard said:

Why hadn’t it happened before? Before Kappa and before Castore, we were supposed to be in a long term deal with Castore. 

Just seems when Nas gets impatient or annoyed with slow pace or ineffective he gets involved.  Let somebody else choose Gerrard…Nas got rid and he personally got in Emery.  We had Kappa and Castore…problems ensue…Nas gets involved and uses his contacts to get a good kit supplier.

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Sorry, but Heck made a dog's dinner of the u-turn on the crest, the Holte changes and he absolutely mangled the comms on cancelling the new North stand.

Edit: not forgetting on his new, new crest, all he had to do was something different from the Lerner badge - a claret lion - and he couldn't manage that. People act like we are impossible to please but that is such a lazy position. The thing that came up in 2007 and ever since was that a yellow lion looked weak on a blue background. 

He has a long way to to go atone.

I get the feeling one or two are defending him to the hilt now because it is the 'against the grain' position. 

Edited by Captain_Townsend
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5 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

Sorry, but Heck made a dog's dinner of the u-turn on the crest, the Holte changes and he absolutely mangled the comms on cancelling the new North stand.

He has a long way to to go atone.

I get the feeling one or two are defending him to the hilt now because it is the 'against the grain' position. 

So the communication was poor. He just did one interview with club site to announce all of this. Then just presented the crest as our new crest essentially. So the manner of thos was poor.

The actual decisions he's made show leadership and have logical reasons for them which are to the benefit of the club.

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The jury is still out on his deal with Adidas. If we're getting boilerplate designs from them, and not getting close to the 30-40m+ that Newcastle got in their deal then he's not done well.

Obviously we don't have champions league yet (unlike Newcastle when they signed) although neither will Newcastle by the time their shirt deal starts.

It could be good and something to credit him with, but at the moment the only real evidence we have of his actions are the North stand cancellation, the Terrace View holte changes, and the trademarked atrocity of a badge.

None of those are good in my book. Terrace View may bring more money in to the club, but it seems negligible in the scheme of things and exists to the detriment of the Holte's ST holders.

I'm hopeful the delays in the badge being revealed indicate he's taking another look at it,  and that the deal will be in the 20m+ range (assuming we get CL football).

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Indeed. The cherry on the cake for me is the comms. If we be kind to him, and stay neutral on the decisions he has made, then you have to concede his communication of these decisions has been icompetent. Worse, they almost assume we are too thick to work out that they don't make sense (for example claiming the new round badge was really a 1981-82 anniversary one season crest tribute, after a clear 2022 comm that it would be a new  crest for a new era; that a new North Stand was too big, when our average attendances are the best they have been in about 75 years).

 

I would respect him more if he was honest - Purslow for his faults did excellent comms.

Edited by Captain_Townsend
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