Kleanthous started out in the motor trade and then moved into petrochemicals. At the age of 21 he formed a telecommunications company called NAG Telecom. He was the first FA Director appointed League representative to the FA Women's Super League Committee (now Board) and was involved in the inauguration of the
Women's Super League competition. He has served three times as a director of the
Football Conference and was responsible for re-branding the competition as the National League. He formed and chaired National League Broadcasting, which trained students in camera and sports filming techniques that were then utilised to produce the
BT Sport highlight shows. Kleanthous has seen Barnet F.C. reach its furthest positions in the
FA Cup,
League Cup and
EFL Trophy as well as qualifying four times for the play-offs. The 2001 relegation of the club from the Football League was followed four years later by its promotion but the club needed a new modern home. He bought Barnet Cricket Club, adjacent to the football club's existing ground,
Underhill Stadium, as he thought it would be an ideal site to develop a larger stadium. However,
Barnet Council did not want the expansion; after failing to convince Barnet Council to support the club's expansion plans, he eventually relocated the club to his leisure complex at
The Hive in the neighbouring
London Borough of Harrow. He was an early pioneer in women's football and adopted Barnet Ladies in 1995, integrating them within the Barnet F.C. set-up, the first women's football club fully incorporated within a men's league club. Then in 2013 he formed a new women's football team, the
London Bees, who won a license to play in the FA Women's Super League. The London Bees have joined Barnet F.C. at The Hive.
Leisure Kleanthous was responsible for the planning, construction and opening of "The Hive” at the Prince Edward's playing fields, in
Edgware. He initially invested £11 million into the site to develop several astroturf pitches, 10 grass pitches, 14 dressing rooms, physiotherapy rooms and meeting rooms. It was opened as a centre of footballing excellence on 15 December 2009 by
Fabio Capello and Sir
Trevor Brooking. He has subsequently invested over £50 million to turn the site into a sports training venue and stadium with medical sports science facilities. The Hive leisure complex has hosted international teams from Brazil, Germany, Spain, Italy, Peru, Sweden and many other premier overseas clubs as well as various England national teams. It has become a base for the Nigerian national team and has played host to the
London Broncos, the Oxford Cambridge Varsity Finals, county cup finals and various other men's and women's club cup finals. Development on the site is ongoing with planning granted in 2018 for an academy, indoor hall, stadium expansion and multi level parking facilities set to cost around £20 million over two years, taking the value of the complex to over £150 million.
Medical Kleanthous partnered with
Toshiba Medical Systems (now
Canon Medical) to form the first medical imaging academy in the UK and announced a further learning facility due to open in 2020 at
Glasgow Caledonian University. He owns several medical scanning and diagnostics companies trading under the brand of TIC Health and operates a £10 million+ fleet of over a dozen high tech mobile scanning relocatables which are deployed in hospitals around the UK under the brand of TIC Mobile. In 2017 he opened “The Imaging Centre” at The Hive which cost nearly £8 million and is the most advanced sports medical scanning unit in Europe. In keeping with his philosophy of the best being available to everyone, this centre is open to the local community as well as providing high performance imaging for elite athletes. In 2019, the centre successfully supported the
Royal Free Hospital to help reduce a waiting list in difficult oncology scans. In the same year TIC Health also acquired Cardio Direct and Cooper Health in
Harley Street and now provides cardiac screening services for the FA as well as Premier League and Football League clubs. ==References==