Paul Barber OBE is primed to share his wealth of experience with Melbourne Victory.
Barber accepted a position on the Board of Directors last month, representing the interests of Tony Bloom MBE – who subscribed for an initial 19.1% stake in the Club in March 2025.
The distinguished football executive, twice named Chief Executive of the Year at The Football Business Awards, has been in Melbourne as the Club finalises preparations for the 2025/26 Isuzu UTE A-League Men’s and Ninja A-League Women’s seasons.
He attended the Victory in Business event at the Palladium at Crown on Wednesday, being the event’s keynote speaker, after visiting the Parliament of Victoria with key stakeholders of Melbourne Victory 24 hours earlier.
This followed a trip to the Docklands for a Melbourne Victory Community program, which provides 50 young people from migrant backgrounds the opportunity to play football at no cost – just one of the many activities that connects over 20,000 young people to football and the Club each year.
There was, though, only one place for the visit to begin as he attended the Club’s offices at our spiritual home, AAMI Park, on Monday to, in his words, “get under the skin” of Victory.
Acknowledging that although much of his communication will occur remotely, Barber was clear that face-to-face engagement cannot be matched as he met executives, players, coaches and staff.
“I’m always keen when I go on the board of any organisation to try and get under the skin of it, understand it, meet the people, put faces to names, and, more importantly, personalities to faces and names. The only way is to physically be there. The only challenge when you live in the UK is the journey. But it’s well worth coming.
“I’ve got a good sense of the Club’s culture and the quality of the people here, which is high. High levels of professionalism, experience, knowledge, and just a willingness for the Club to have a great season.”
Barber has operated as Chief Executive Officer for Brighton & Hove Albion in the English Premier League for more than 13 years, and has also served as Deputy Chairman to Bloom, Victory’s newest investor, on the club’s board since 2018.
Together, the pair have delivered a transformative impact on Brighton, delivering continued growth within a sustainable framework, ensuring the organisation is regarded as one of the EPL’s most successful.
A relationship built on trust, which started with a handshake agreement and has blossomed into a formidable partnership, Barber explains how this dynamic will work for Victory, as well as outlining that, along with Bloom’s associations with Royale Union Saint-Gilloise and Heart of Midlothian, multi-club ownership is not being targeted.
“From Tony’s point of view, it was an opportunity to have his shareholding represented on the board, and something that John [Dovaston] and Caroline [Carnegie] welcomed, and the other directors welcomed.
“We’re not seeking through Tony Bloom’s different investments, a multi-club ownership type model. It’s very different. They’re all individual investments for different reasons. But in each case, Tony wants to make the club that he’s invested in better.”
Dialling down further into the specifics of his role, Barber is clear that this relationship is about knowledge transfer, and not a shift in the Club’s autonomy.
“As a Director at Victory, my role is to complement the experience and quality staff and leadership that are here. It’s going to be what I can offer them by way of the questions that they ask me, as opposed to saying, ‘You’re clearly not doing this or you need to be doing that,’ because from what I’m seeing, everything’s being done, and it’s just a question of, can we amplify it, or accelerate it in any way and if so, is there a way I can help with that?”
“And how can we do that, obviously, through insights from our knowledge of recruiting players, through data, coaches, but also the experience we have together of running football clubs. We’re not going to be here every day. We’re not going to be here physically even every month, but in joining the board meetings and listening to some of the challenges that Melbourne Victory are facing, and hopefully being able to bring some experience of similar challenges that we’ve had at Brighton, or in Tony’s case, in Belgium, or in Scotland, we might be able to share some experiences that solve problems faster.
“It doesn’t make what we do or how we do it better. It just means, as a collective experience, it might be useful for Victory as the Club progresses.”
As well as receiving regular plaudits for his work with Brighton and Tottenham Hotspur, this will not be Barber’s first overseas venture.
In 2011, he was the first British football executive to lead a club in Major League Soccer when Vancouver Whitecaps FC entered the competition, and Barber views this experience as invaluable when considering the landscape in which Victory operates.
“I think it’s almost more relevant, partly because the geography of the leagues is not dissimilar. It’s a huge amount of travel involved in MLS and in the A-League, a huge number of climate changes, time difference changes, and salary cap issues. The fact that you’re competing with other bigger, more developed, more supported sports is another factor which is very similar to North America.
“I can see so many similarities from when I went to Vancouver in 2010. But there are other experiences, whether it was with the FA in England, whether it was Tottenham or more recently, Brighton, where hopefully some of the challenges that we’ve been through are going to be things that Melbourne Victory will face in the future. Therefore, we can anticipate some of them and hopefully get ahead of the game.”
Barber has served as a member of The FA Council and Professional Game Board in England since 2018, and notably as a non-executive director of Women in Football since 2020, leading to his receipt of the prestigious Off the Pitch Award for outstanding contribution to the advancement of women’s and girls’ football at the 2025 Women’s Football Awards.
And with Victory leading the push toward 52-week contracts for players in the Ninja A-League Women’s, Barber, who is also the non-executive chair of charity Football Beyond Borders, holds a vision that harmonises with the Club’s.
“The growth of the women’s game is the next big opportunity for football worldwide. And I think you know the success of the Matildas here, the success of the Lionesses in England, increasingly, anyone who owns, runs or is involved in the running of a football club can see that this is a big opportunity.
“Supporting the women’s game generally is important, not just for cultural reasons, but I think it is genuinely an economic growth opportunity for football as a whole.
“All in all, in my time here so far, I have been hugely impressed by the culture of the Club and the understanding of football culture globally here, not least the energy, professionalism, engagement and commitment of every person who is part of the Melbourne Victory family. I look forward to a successful season for both our Men’s and Women’s teams, and after spending time with both Arthur and Jeff, I know the fans and the Club are in good hands.”
