Brighton’s brilliant business model illustrated by staggering Graham Potter compensation fee
Blink and you could easily miss it. Not-quite-hidden-away in the newly published Brighton & Hove Albion accounts covering the 2021-22 season is confirmation that Chelsea paid a staggering £21.5m to take Graham Potter from the AMEX Stadium to Stamford Bridge.
The fee makes Potter the most expensive manager of all time, eclipsing the £17.4m RB Leipzig received from Bayern Munich for Julian Nagelsmann in the summer of 2021 and the £13.9m Jose Mourinho cost Real Madrid in 2010. Nagelsmann won a Bundesliga title in his first season at the Allianz Arena whilst Mourinho collected three trophies in three years in the Spanish capital.
In a section entitled Post Balance Sheet Events, Brighton’s 2021-22 accounts record: “On 18 September 2022 the club was delighted to appoint Roberto De Zerbi as its new head coach following the loss of Graham Potter and his team to Chelsea a few days earlier in a deal that saw the club receive a sum of £21.5m.”
The financials also cover Potter taking Billy Reid, Bjon Hamberg, Bruno, Ben Roberts and Kyle Macaulay with him to Stamford Bridge. Brighton will have received an additional fee from Chelsea for head of recruitment Paul Winstanley, who also upped sticks for west London in a separate transfer two months later.
Potter is now the fifth-most expensive outgoing in Seagulls history after Marc Cucurella (£62m), Ben White (£50m), Leandro Trossard (£25m) and Yves Bissouma (£25m). With De Zerbi out of work after leaving Shakhtar Donetsk because of the war in Ukraine, Brighton did not have to spend a single penny of the money they received for Potter to fund a replacement.
It has been something of a disappointing start to life at Chelsea for Potter. After winning six and drawing three of his opening nine games, Potter found himself humiliated on his return to the AMEX. Brighton ran riot and hammered their visitors 4-1 in a febrile atmosphere, giving De Zerbi his first win as Seagulls boss.
The Blues went on a dismal run of three wins, four draws and nine defeats from their next 16 games, which included elimination from both the Carabao Cup and FA Cup. With calls intensifying by the week for Potter to be sacked, Chelsea did manage to rally just before the international break, although a 2-2 home draw against Everton in their most recent Premier League outing was another cause for concern.
Having picked up 17 points so far in the Stamford Bridge hot seat, Potter has cost Chelsea more than £1m per point with his reign six months old. That does not take into account the £12m-a-year contract he signed upon his arrival either. With so much money invested in Potter – and a five-year deal resulting in a sizable payoff if he were to be relieved of his duties – it is little wonder Todd Boehly is avoiding the temptation of an itchy finger.
Brighton in contrast have gone from strength-to-strength under De Zerbi. The charismatic Italian has the Seagulls positioned as dark horses in the race for Champions League qualification and into the semi finals of the FA Cup, where they will face Manchester United – opponents who their previous two encounters with have ended in a 6-1 aggregate win to Brighton.
Central to this improvement has been De Zerbi unlocking goals from a squad who struggled to put the ball in the back of the net under his predecessor. This rather disproves the theory that the Seagulls were letting Potter down by not signing an expensive centre forward to make the most of his approach play. With Chelsea now struggling to score, the questions is being asked if Potter is the problem rather than the personnel at his disposal.
Other items of note in the Brighton 2021-22 accounts include the club making a profit of £24.1m, largely though player sales. They banked £68.3m, bringing in more during a 12-month period than the previous 120 years the Albion have been in business combined. Tony Bloom has invested nearly £500m of his own fortune in his 13 years as chairman into building the AMEX, Brighton’s training ground, other infrastructure and funding the rise from League One struggles to European challengers.
The accounts also reveal Brighton paid a £3m consultancy fee to Starlizard, the company founded by Bloom whose algorithms, data and analytics drive the Seagulls’ transfer business. That looks like an absolute bargain when it returns signings like Kaoru Mitoma, Moises Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister, none of whom cost Brighton more than £10m – a drop in the ocean compared to what we now know Chelsea paid for Potter.
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