Melvyn Morris

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

is an English businessman and failed football club chairman. As a web entrepreneur, Morris gained a large part of his fortune through his successful startup investment in

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

, the firm behind the mobile game Candy Crush Saga. More recently, he became known for his disastrous tenure as owner of

Derby County F.C. Derby County Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Derby, Derbyshire, England. In 2022, it was announced that DCFC was acquired by Clowes Developments (UK) Ltd, a Derbyshire-based property group. Founded in 1884 ...

, which saw debts accrued, acrimony with the EFL, a points deduction, a transfer embargo and the loss of players (including academy products), culminating in the club entering administration in 2021 and being relegated to the third tier of English football for the first time in over thirty years.

Business ventures

Morris was born and raised in the

Littleover Littleover is a village and suburb in the city of Derby, in Derbyshire, England, between Rose Hill, Normanton, Sunny Hill and Mickleover, about southwest of Derby city centre. History The history of Littleover's name is simple. It is der ...

area of Derby. Out of school, he first worked as a

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...

and

flooring Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface ...

manager at a company he helped to establish in Spain, before venturing into entrepreneurship. After leaving the flooring firm, he returned to the UK to develop a

dating website Online dating, also known as Internet dating, Virtual dating, or Mobile app dating, is a relatively recent method used by people with a goal of searching for and interacting with potential romantic or sexual partners, via the internet. An onlin ...

called uDate, which he went on to sell for £100 million. He used the money secured from the sale to invest in

Prevx Prevx is a discontinued anti-malware utility. There are separate real-time and on-demand versions. It can remove low-risk adware for free, but the user has to purchase and enter a license key if it is more serious. Scanning can take anywhere from ...

, an internet security firm, which was later sold to

Webroot Webroot Inc. is an American privately-held cybersecurity software company that provides Internet security for consumers and businesses. The company was founded in Boulder, Colorado, US, and is now headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, and h ...

. He then helped to set up

, which he chaired from 2003 onwards until stepping down in 2014. When King was sold to

Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in July 2008 through the merger of Activision, Inc. (the publicly traded parent company of Activision Publishing) and Viven ...

, Morris collected £450 million. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2020, Morris is said to have amassed a fortune of £515 million, making him the joint 268th richest person in the UK, and the joint 11th richest in the East Midlands. Morris was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(CBE) in the

2017 Birthday Honours The 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as pa ...

for services to business and charitable services.

Derby County

Morris bought a 22% stake in

in May 2014, shortly after the club's 2014 Football League Championship play-off Final defeat to

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Ro ...

. He was involved in a league-wide push to increase TV revenue for non-Premier League clubs. The following season he assumed ownership of the club, overseeing unprecedented levels of spending including breaking the club's transfer record four times in his first three years. He also oversaw an equally unprecedented managerial turnover: nine managers between June 2015 and May 2021. In this period the club endured three unsuccessful play-off campaigns, failing in the semi-finals twice and losing in the 2019 final to Aston Villa; in May 2021, the club narrowly avoided relegation. Earlier, in October 2020, it was announced that Morris was intending to sell the club and was actively seeking new owners. After two unsuccessful attempts by Morris to sell the club, the board of directors announced in September 2021 that the club was to go into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

, resulting in a total deduction of twenty-one points and leading to the club's relegation from the

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

and put the club at risk of being wound up.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Mel Living people English businesspeople Derby County F.C. directors People from Littleover Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Year of birth missing (living people)