Paul Barber (soccer administrator)

Paul Barber is an English football administrator and executive who is currently the chief executive of Brighton & Hove Albion.

As Commercial Director and latterly Director of Marketing and Communications for The Football Association (The FA), Paul Barber created "FA Partners", The FA's sponsorship programme for 2002–2006 which secured multimillion-pound agreements with McDonald's, Pepsi, Carlsberg, Nationwide Building Society, British Airways, Giorgio Armani, Sainsbury's, and Umbro, while shielding The FA's prime assets - The FA Cup and England teams - from title sponsors. Barber also secured The FA Council's agreement to rename The Charity Shield as The FA Community Shield to better connect a top sponsor to both the grass roots football community and the highest levels of the game, a sponsorship concept Barber later sold to McDonald's. FA Partners also included sponsorship of women's football, courtesy of Nationwide Building Society, for the first time, as well as other significant support for grass roots football, an area of the game Barber is believed to be passionate about.

During his time at The FA, Barber led negotiations for The FA's various long term broadcast media agreements with BSkyB, BBC and ITV ensuring a terrestrial broadcast platform for The FA's major properties and innovative sports coverage from BSkyB together with rights fees worth several hundred million pounds. Following in the footsteps of close friend and former FA Chief Executive, David Davies, Barber often acted as The FA's public and media face and voice during a high profile and at times highly controversial period for organisation which included the last match at the old Wembley Stadium, the appointment of Sven-Göran Eriksson as England coach, Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand's missed drugs test, a threatened England players strike ahead of the crucial European Championship 2014 qualifier in Turkey, and the resignation of Chief Executive Adam Crozier.

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