Christian Nourry

Queens Park Rangers are intending to turn around a decade of drift by going in an entirely new direction with strategy: 26-year-old Christian Nourry has been appointed as new chief executive, with long-time incumbent Lee Hoos remaining as chairman.

The idea is to build the club’s structure anew so it is constructed around the most sophisticated best practice in the modern game. While there will inevitably be focus on how Nourry is the youngest chief executive in English football, the view within the club is that this is irrelevant against his knowledge of the most sophisticated current approaches.

The executive, who is of French, German and British descent, joins from a role as Managing Partner for Europe at football advisory group, Retexo Intelligence. It is an American firm which have been involved in aiding precisely the kind of work that Nourry is now charged with at Loftus Road, with clients that have included AS Roma, Athletic Bilbao, Anderlecht and a number of other major football clubs.

Nourry has been involved in some of Retexo’s key services, which include audits of the organisational behaviour of clubs across first team, academy and non-football areas in order to assess how they measure against best practices or are doing anything innovative. The business is founded by Charles Gould, also from Britain.

Retexo also advises on club takeovers and ownership, while aiding prospective investors on football club acquisition. It was reported in November that QPR had appointed a team of US bankers to pitch for new investment.

That has in part led to the current change of direction. Nourry has been described within the game as an innovative thinker in the world football business. A number of senior European executives were struck by a presentation Nourry gave at a conference in Turkey last year which they felt represented a striking new vision on how the game could be run at an executive level. One made a quip about “the Lionel Messi of the football business world” due to his precociousness.