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November 26, 2018
New York, NY

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Shaun Harvey

CEO, EFL

Shaun Harvey
Having held senior positions at football clubs in all four divisions of English professional football, Shaun started his career as Club Secretary at Scarborough FC. He then became Managing Director at Bradford City AFC, where he was in post for ten years helping the Club achieve promotion to the Premier League for the first time in its history. After a decade at the Bantams Harvey was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Leeds United, where he remained for nine years. In 2013 he was appointed Chief Executive of the English Football League (EFL), where he has now been in post for five years.

Previously, Harvey had served on the EFL Board of Directors, having been elected to the role by Championship Clubs in 2011. As Chief Executive, he now oversees the day to day administration and management of the largest single body of professional clubs in European football which includes the world’s fourth most watched league competition, the Sky Bet Championship, as well as Sky Bet Leagues One and Two, the Carabao Cup and the Checkatrade Trophy.

During his time at the EFL, Harvey has implemented a number of innovative changes to the League and its competitions. In the summer of 2016 the Football League was renamed the ‘English Football League’ as part of a comprehensive corporate and competition re-branding to give the League’s competitions a new and distinct identity, while simultaneously retaining its unique heritage. More recent changes have seen a revamped format of the Checkatrade Trophy competition in a bid to strengthen the future of English football as well as an expansion of the EFL’s reputation overseas, which includes securing a new sponsor for the EFL Cup, Carabao.

Shaun successfully concluded negotiations with Sky Sports to secure a live domestic broadcasting rights deal worth nearly £600million running until 2024, the biggest in the League’s history.

Harvey oversees a commercial programme that now generates more than £160m of revenue every season from broadcasting and sponsorship including the recent launch of the new iFollow service – a ground-breaking live digital streaming OTT platform that allows fans of EFL Clubs from all over the world to watch their team play live – a first for football and a pioneering service in sports broadcasting.

On his first day of work at the EFL, Harvey committed to creating a working relationship with all Club owners and to ensure that investment into EFL Clubs was seen as an attractive proposition in its own right, not just as a gateway to the EPL.

With 72 Clubs to manage, his diplomatic skills are often tested to the limit but the principle of the ‘strength of the collective’ is at the heart of all decision making. He is the original poacher turned gamekeeper but seen as an ally of all.