Stadium Upgrade Gathers Pace

Cunnah joins the club as our new Chief Operating Officer.

He was former Chief Executive of Wembley for four years and oversaw the building of the new national stadium until he parted company with them 12 months ago.

He has further ties to the Football Assocation where he also worked as Finance Office, acquiring Wembley National Stadium Ltd from Wembley Plc in March 1999.

Cunnah was also a key member in the launch of the Football Foundation and the securing of £50 million a year from professional football and the Government to help the growth of grassroots football.

His background doesn’t stop there though. He also led a restructing of the FA to be led by a main board of directors and has held Corporate Finance Directorships at Coca-Cola Schweppes Ltd and has held several senior positions at Guinness Plc.

The appointment follows on from Randy Lerner’s announcement back in October that the club were looking to see what could be done to upgrade the stadium. This project is probably high on the list with our average gates up above 40,000 for the first time in 57 years and as one of the finest stadiums already in the country, we are likely to be involved in the 2012 Olympics, and therefore any improvements we can make will only improve our standing.

You may remember, Randy said:

‘We are starting to get focused on whether or not it is as comfortable and clean and beautiful as we can make it and whether there are upgrades within the existing building that would make some sense.

‘We’re starting to get focused on how Villa and Villa Park stacks up in that light and starting to think about what we can do about it.’

I’d now be expecting a sooner rather than later announcement of plans.