Biography | Mark Bullingham — He Walked Into Wembley as the FA's Commercial Lead

In August 2016 Mark Bullingham joined the Football Association at Wembley Stadium as Commercial and Marketing Director.

The FA's geographical address is the stadium itself: Wembley Stadium, Wembley, HA9 0WS.

The rebuilt bowl had been open since 2007. The Association owned it through a subsidiary and ran its headquarters from the same site.

Bullingham arrived from Fuse Sports and Entertainment, where he had been CEO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

At Wembley his brief covered broadcast, sponsorship, licensing, hospitality and the digital channels that sat around the England teams and the FA Cup.

By the FA's own later account, annual revenue rose by more than £100 million while he ran the commercial function.

That figure is the Association's, repeated in its appointment materials in 2019. Independent coverage at the time spoke of a rise of about 25 percent.

In December 2018 the job title widened to Chief Commercial and Football Development Officer, adding participation and development.

The work was not a private suite somewhere in west London. It sat inside the national stadium the FA had rebuilt at a cost that made it, for a time, the most expensive football ground on earth.

Wembley is a public building. Visitors still walk the Olympic Steps and stand under the arch.

What changed in 2016 was who sat upstairs selling the place.

Photo: Jordan Reay, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons