BRADFORD (Park Avenue) have appointed Martin Knight as their new director of football operations to help with their plans for the Horsfall Stadium.

Last month, the Telegraph & Argus reported that Bradford council had approved Avenue's plans to put a 3G pitch down on the site as the club aim to build a community sports hub.

The role entails Knight taking "complete control" of all football matters from first team down to the academy system.

Avenue's website issued this statement: "The board of directors of Bradford (Park Avenue) football club are pleased to announce the appointment of Martin Knight as their new director of football operations.

"In this role Mr. Knight will have complete control of all matters relating to football at the club from the first team down to the juniors.

"The club is currently working on an ambitious plan to improve Horsfall Stadium and now needs to make changes to take full advantage of these amazing facilities once they are completed.

Club chairman Gareth Roberts commented: "We are very fortunate to have somebody with the knowledge and experience of Martin Knight available who can come in and help us build a successful and sustainable community club.

"It is even more important in these difficult times that we carefully manage our resources and we look forward to creating a club to be proud of.

"Martin has a background with more than 25 years’ experience in optimising the commercial performance of businesses across a varied number of sectors, most recently at SharkNinja, building a leading consumer brand.

"Martin focusses on developing a high-performance culture of leaders and operators, refining organisational structures and processes, and developing engaged and collaborative workforces."

Knight himself said: "I am extremely honoured and excited to be joining Bradford (Park Avenue) and hope that with the support of our fans, staff, volunteers and board of directors, we can transform our club to be the standard bearer in how community clubs can operate on and off the field, from our junior section through to our first teams.

"There is a lot of hard work ahead of us all to achieve these ambitious aims, and a challenge of our current thinking and practices too.

"However, we have a lot of talented, dedicated and hugely passionate people involved already, whom I hope will join us in achieving this."