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Blake Chandlee was a fairly important guy at Yahoo, and he wasn’t just some quick-on-his-feet opportunist; Chandlee spent about four years with the company.  But he’s now moved on, and Facebook is reportedly the cause of Chandlee’s departure.

Yahoo Exec Leaves For Facebook

This news comes from Media Week’s Andrew McCormick, and though neither he nor we have been successful in contacting Chandlee, McCormick reveals, “Facebook has poached Yahoo! commercial director Blake Chandlee to be its UK sales director and first UK employee.”

It seems probable that Chandlee will be working out of Facebook’s new Soho office, then.  It also seems strange that Facebook took so long to hire someone in the UK - we noted its interest in Soho almost a full month ago - but this is a relatively minor point.

What’s more important is the fact that, as McCormick writes, “Chandlee is expected to start at the social networking phenomenon to spearhead a major push into the UK market.”  In recent days, we’ve seen Facebook overtake MySpace within this market, so with a “major push,” well . . . any competition may effectively be over.

Chandlee’s move to Facebook won’t do Yahoo any favors, either; some analysts say the company should break up, which puts Yahoo in something less than the best possible position to attract new talent.