He developed a successful career as a chartered accountant with Arthur Young and ultimately became a senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, specialising in business turnaround.
He then changed direction, resigning from PwC to become the Football Association's chief executive in July 2003, where he sought to apply his business skills in the field of sports governance.
Palios resigned in August 2004, following media revelations around his brief relationship with a Football Association secretary, Faria Alam, who subsequently went on to have an affair with the England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson.
Although a single man at the time of his relationship and strongly maintaining that he had done nothing wrong, he resigned in order to protect his five children from the huge media attention that accompanied the revelations of Alam.
[14] He was a non-executive director of the British Judo Association until 2016[15] and a member of the Audit Committee at Surrey County Cricket Club,[16] and has a particular interest in sports governance.