Birch started out as an apprentice footballer aged 16 when he joined Liverpool in 1974. He left to join Shrewsbury Town in 1979 for a then club record fee of £50,000. He also had a brief spell at Chester after which he retired from playing professionally. He then enrolled at Liverpool Polytechnic aged 24 and gained a first class degree in Accountancy before qualifying as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young. He also continued to play semi-professionally with clubs including Marine, Runcorn, and Northwich Victoria.
Financial career
In 2002, he left Ernst & Young to become Chief Executive of Chelsea, where he led the £180 million sale to Roman Abramovich in 2003. After the sale, Birch chose not to stayat the club and in October that year was appointed Chief Executive of Leeds United, overseeing the takeover by a local consortium. He then moved to Everton in June 2004 to become Chief Executive. Birch was given the task of overhauling the Merseyside club's finances, but resigned after a disagreement over strategy with the board and major shareholders. Since then Birch has been a partner at Deloitte and Chief Operating Officer of Sportfive, the largest football rights agency in Europe, as well as holding other Chief Executive roles at Derby County and Sheffield United. He returned to the accountancy profession in 2011 and undertook the role of Administrator at financially troubled Portsmouth. Under his stewardship the club was sold to the Pompey Supporters' Trust, with Birch performing a similar feat as Administrator at Heart of Midlothian in 2013. He subsequently undertook an advisory role to the Board at Bolton Wanderers in late 2015 which finished in March 2016 on the sale of the club. He joined the global valuation and corporate finance advisors Duff & Phelps as a Managing Director in January 2017, having previously led the professional sports group at global advisory firm BDO International. In March 2017 Portsmouth confirmed that they had retained the services of Mr. Birch during a period of negotiations with Mike Eisner and his investment vehicleTornante regarding a takeover of the club. He became chairman of Swansea City on 18 March 2019.
