Dowling, who will be based out of the company’s Manchester office, will be responsible for continuing the growth of the Fanatics commerce business outside of North America and will report to chief executive Andrew Low Ah Kee.

He joins Fanatics from Adidas where he was senior vice-president for digital growth for six years. Before Adidas, Dowling spent 10 years at Unilever where he set up and led its direct-to-consumer ecommerce offering.