Brighton have confirmed that Chelsea paid £21.5m in compensation for prising away head coach Graham Potter and his backroom team last September.
It is a record sum paid by a Premier League club for a head coach and the second biggest of all time - behind Bayern Munich’s £22m fee to bring in Julian Nagelsmann from RB Leipzig in 2021.
The south coast club, who sit seventh in the Premier League table and are in the semi-finals of the FA Cup, published their latest financial results earlier today.
And while they do not take into account Potter’s departure or last summer’s sale of midfielder Yves Bissouma to Tottenham Hotspur the change in the dugout is listed under “post balance sheet events.”
The financial statement reads: “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.”
Brighton, on the other hand, are toasting “really encouraging” financial returns - after posting a profit of £24.1m for the financial year ending June 30, 2022. A year previous, on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Seagulls posted an operating loss of £50.4m and this is their first time in the black since winning promotion to the top flight in 2017.
Chairman Tony Bloom said: “Overall, these accounts show a good profit for the period, and this is really encouraging that in a season where we impressed on the field, we also delivered good results off it. Alongside our top-ten/top-four vision; we also want to be sustainable, so this is an encouraging set of results and bodes well for the future.”
Bloom went on to praise De Zerbi but admitted that the departure of “key personnel at inconvenient times - Potter in addition to players including Leandro Trossard forcing his way to Arsenal in January - led to “turbulence and upheaval.”
Bloom wrote: “Roberto arrived with an excellent track record and impressive spells in Italy and Ukraine. He was our first choice, and having made such a positive impression during our initial talks, he was the only person we spoke to concerning the role. It’s fair to say Roberto has made a big impact already, and we are thrilled with the work he’s done in a relatively short space of time.
“We continue to live by our club’s core values - act with integrity, treat people well, exceed expectations, aim high and never give up, and make it special. Our values are non-negotiable and I have no doubt they have served us well through recent challenging years.
"During the current season they have helped us navigate calmly through the turbulence and upheaval of losing a number of key personnel at inconvenient times.”
