Significant investment in training, sports science and medical support has placed Aston Villa Football Club’s facilities among the best available in the Barclay Premier League.
According to Robin Russell, Chief Financial Officer at Villa, the consequence of moving the Club forward and improving its infrastructure with 21st Century facilities has meant that, “we have also had to up our game in the back office! Cooperation with Presence Systems Ltd (PSL) has achieved just that. PlayerPro Contracts has been successfully installed and is fully operational.”
It will be easily recognised that any Premiership club’s most important asset is its player pool, costing anywhere between 50 and 70 % of the club’s annual turnover. The need to manage all aspects of player contracts effectively using reliable data is, therefore, paramount. PlayerPro Contracts provides financial control and manages player contracts in one secure system.
At Villa, the implementation of PlayerPro Contracts has consolidated player contracts, agent agreements, player appearances, match results, final league position etc into a secure and easily accessible database. In particular and importantly, it provides ‘Alerts’ detailing the financial commitments resulting from each contract trigger.
Villa’s Club Secretary, Sharon Barnhurst comments, “PlayerPro Contracts improves the flow of information between departments. It is maintained centrally and so can be updated regularly but also viewed generally. All access is password protected but details about player contracts are easily and safely shared between Admin, HR(Payroll) and Finance departments, even though they are located on different sites - Villa Park and the training ground at Bodymoor Heath.”
Up and running at Villa since the 2007/2008 season, PlayerPro Contracts has proved to be easy to operate and installed seamlessly into existing routines.