Ex-Aston Villa chief executive takes new role with San Jose Earthquakes
By Josh Tonti
Tom Fox, who held the Aston Villa chief executive position from August 2014 – March 2016, is set to become the new President of MLS side, San Jose Earthquakes.
Tom Fox found a new job in football sixteen months after leaving Aston Villa in the midst of a relegation crisis.
Fox’s final year with the claret and blues was mired in disaster. The club fell out of the Premier League for the first time in club history, as owner Randy Lerner left, and sold the team in shambles.
One year on and the immediate future of the club is more secured, but the setbacks have been significant. Fox’s failures at Aston Villa were most likely a result of circumstance more than incompetence, but the facts are difficult to hide. Not only did Villa suffer relegation, but the business side of things suffered under his watch as well. The past five years see significant losses at the club; losses that affect the football side of the club.
Oh, and let’s not forget adding an £8 million release clause to Fabian Delph’s contract – a player worth three, maybe four times that amount when he departed Aston Villa for Manchester City.
Furthermore, the signings resulted in a serious rift between management and then-manager Tim Sherwood. Many of the summer ’16 signings were not the players Sherwood requested, but those Fox and his team hand-picked.
While Fox largely failed at Villa, he did have success at his prior position, as Arsenal’s chief marketing officer.
Arsenal inked a £30 million-a-year deal with athletic wear company, Puma, to outfit the club in 2013. At the time, it was the richest deal in the United Kingdom. Arsenal reignited itself as one of Europe’s most successful clubs on and off the pitch. The Gunners started winning FA Cups again and the finances were healthy.
Tom Fox previously spent time in the Los Angeles area working in the private sector prior to his Arsenal tenure. San Jose is a five hours drive north from L.A..
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The Earthquakes nor MLS have officially commented at the time of this writing. Fox is replacing the outbound Dave Kaval as team President. Kaval is also President of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball.