Aston Villa quickly becoming a big brand worldwide!

President of business operations Chris Heck and his team have been working hard since his arrival in May 2023. Heck has openly admitted that the club have had to work extremely hard to keep up with the fast-moving progress of the team on the pitch. Under Unai Emery, Aston Villa have gone from relegation candidates when he took over to Champions League participants in just 18 months. Now, it has been reported that Aston Villa are the third fast growing football club brand in world football between 2021 and 2024.

The club have seen an increase of 70% in revenue in that time, mainly due to the work of Heck and Emery since they came to the club. A number of deals have been agreed to help improve the club's revenue in the last few months.

Betano were announced as the club's new new principal and front-of-shirt sponsor on a long-term contract. This deal is worth £40 million, more than double previous sponsors. The club have also of course secured a deal with Adidas to become the their new kit partner which of course will help to generate greater revenue being in partnership with the world's leading sportswear brand. The deal with Adidas is reported to be worth £17 million a season which is a huge increase on the £4 million a year deal with previous kit partner Castore.

In addition to these partnerships, the club yesterday announced a new deal with JD to become the new official retail partner. JD have signed a multi-year agreement to stock official Aston Villa products both online and in stores nationwide.

""This partnership with JD is going to make a big difference to the way we approach our retail operation. Their international reach, alongside their huge presence in the UK, will allow us to showcase our retail offering on a world-wide scale.""

- Chris Heck

This means that Aston Villa will have their shirts up in stores along most UK high streets as the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool have done for many years.

The fact that Villa are above Newcastle in the charts for brand development will also be hugely encouraging. Newcastle, having been taken over by a Saudi Public Investment Fund back in 2021, saw a massively rapid growth due to the huge cash injection into the club which helped them to a top four finish and a place in the UEFA Champions League last season. Newcastle had been tipped to continue to build on this success in the same vain as Manchester City started to do around 15 years ago. However, it now looks like Villa are the more likely of the two to do that.

In order to maintain this upswards projectory as a global brand the results on the pitch will need to continue to be excellent under Unai Emery. The owners and the fans know that the club is in safe hands under Emery and the long-term future of the Spanish manager belongs at Villa Park.

UTV