Liverpool exec Billy Hogan -- currently the club's CCO -- will now serve as both CCO and managing director as CEO Ian Ayre "will leave at the end of the month," according to Tony Connelly of THE DRUM. Hogan’s additional duties as managing director "will now see him take up the responsibility for the management of the club’s marketing and digital media departments." The promotion is "part of a wider transitional period for the club that will pave the way for the new, and still to be named, chief executive who is expected to join in the summer." Other changes to the senior structure of the club "include Michael Edwards’ promotion to the newly-created role of sporting director." Ayre is "set to leave" the club at the end of the month, "drawing to a close" his 10-year tenure at Liverpool. During his time as CEO, Ayre led a "complete overhaul of Liverpool’s financial, commercial and operational structure." In '10, he "secured the shirt sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered Bank -- believed to be one of the most lucrative shirt sponsorship deals in football and significantly increased commercial revenues for reinvestment into the team" (THE DRUM, 2/3). In London, Simon Hughes reported last March, Ayre announced that "he would not extend his contract at Anfield after a period of contemplation" as '15 turned into '16. Liverpool stressed in a statement that he had since "played a pivotal role in completing a ten-month transition plan to put a robust structure and operating framework in place that will ensure continued stability across the club." Ayre will "now take up a post with 1860 Munich on a date yet to be confirmed after being convinced by Hasan Ismaik, the Jordanian majority shareholder, that the challenge in Bavaria is an exciting one, despite the club being fifth to bottom in the German second division and the team including a raft of clients associated with the controversial Portuguese agent Jorge Mendes," including Portuguese Manager Vítor Pereira (INDEPENDENT, 2/3).
