LIV Golf sign key man from Premier League club

LIV Golf have turned to the Premier League to bolster their growing executive team.

The Telegraph reports that the Saudi-backed breakaway league have snapped up Aston Villa’s president of business operations Chris Heck to boost their corporate infrastructure.

It is understood that Heck will take on a similar position at LIV.

And Villa’s website states that Heck will leave the club at the end of the season after deciding to move back to the United States to be closer to his family.

The American executive spent two seasons at Villa Park, overseeing the rise of the Midlands club into the Champions League positions under billionaire owners.

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Before that, the 56-year-old controlled the purse strings at New York Red Bulls and was the president of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team.

Heck is certainly not short of experience in elite level sport.

Intriguingly, he worked with the 76ers at the same time LIV’s new CEO Scott O’Neil was in charge of the team.

O’Neil, also the former chief of Merlin Entertainments, replaced Greg Norman as the league’s new CEO back in January and has immediately set about improving relations with the governing bodies of the professional game.

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In recent months, LIV have signed a TV deal with ITV in the UK and Fox Sports Stateside.

O’Neil also appears to have reignited LIV’s hopes of attaining world ranking points, with the league back in discussions with the Official World Golf Ranking board.

As first reported by Sportico, LIV are now in advanced talks over an arrangement that would finally see them offer ranking points at their events.

It is believed LIV could even be willing to make some concessions to their format in order to become accredited with world ranking status.