Tom Fox Salary Rank
As per our report on Aston Villa’s May 2015 accounts, which came into the public domain today, Tom Fox’s alleged salary of £1.25m+ was around a whooping 400% increase on his predecessor Paul Faulkner’s package.
No doubt Villa owner Randy Lerner thought Fox was worth it with his previous commercial credentials and he probably thought he could offset Fox’s wage against the immense income that would come the club’s way with the much-improved TV rights deal that all Premier League clubs would be privy to next season. Well, you live and learn.
Interestingly, the Daily Mail today published the below table comparing the salaries of all the current Premier League CEO’s (or top paid director) and considering what Villa’s league position is, Mr Lerner certainly isn’t getting very good value.
‘Top Paid Suit’ Table
Tom Fox ranks as the sixth most well-paid football club director in the Premier League, raking in an income on par with the CEOs at both Liverpool and Chelsea.
It’s an astonishing situation. What was Lerner thinking? And we’re not saying this in hindsight. Villa would have to be gunning for Europe and financially sound for it to make any sense to pay a Villa CEO that amount, and that was a scenario that was always unlikely in the short-term. Also, it’s not as if Fox came to Villa as a wise and experienced football club CEO. He’d never performed the role before.
When you look at the wages of CEOs at clubs that have got their act together in the league despite being perceived as smaller clubs – Southampton, Bournemouth, Watford and Leicester – all are around £145,000 to £500,000.
In the context of both, other club’s CEO wages and Villa’s current performance and results on-and-off the field, it would be hard to justify the Villa CEO’s salary, even if it was half of the present amount.
I don’t get Lerner’s thinking. I really don’t.
UTV
Although we know Learner has no football knowlege we often forget his financial expertise. What a coup Fox has been only 10 times Leicester’s CEO!!!! I’m sure like the wonderful financial sense of the transfers he has overseen we will soon see Villa park as a housing estate. The longer you leave dumping the club Randy the more you will lose. 10 games into next season with more disastrous comings and goings when we are bottom of the championship you may see reality
Gonna start with failed to notice T. Fox’s name next to the highest paid director line on the financial statement excerpt I saw. Though coming from Arsenal I doubt he was cheap. The jump in comp to the Directors as a whole is shocking but the decline in revenue is sackable for a CEO. I believe he has already admitted liability for last season in a fan meeting, well these financial results are the hard dollar result of his liability. Resign with dignity Fox, but I suspect you’ll fight for another 3.3M GBP in a one off expense.
Lerner is poorly advised and doesn’t have his fathers business acumen. Selling MBNA made them wealthy but in paper and tied to BAML, which has done terribly, in part with Mr. Kings help ironically. Lerner doesn’t see this except that his net worth has declined so won’t throw money at the club (yet still does somehow amazingly) and doesn’t want to be away from his family to be hands on with Villa, unfortunately this doesn’t work. Too many people have made themselves chief because there isn’t one seeing everything. Plus a series of poor manager appointments coupled with seasons of selling talent, buying poorly, and failures bringing youth through has also left the football side a mess. This is a case study in how not to run a club.
Lerner is a total idiot. We should have got it when he spent a million getting someone to redesign the club badge.
Trevor fisher is correct. Randy Lerner inherited his money and recent reports suggest he has lost two thirds of it in the last five years. Clever man eh……..
you are assuming Lerner is thinking. As a historian I have always had doubts about the Cambridge History Department where Lerner got his MA. Bunch of donkeys.
Lerner is not a businessman. He inherited his money. We assume a rich man is a wise man at our peril.
A fool and his money are soon parted
How come we never ask the fans of the Cleveland Browns what THEY think o f Lerner?
Trevor Fisher