Brighton have revealed how much they received from Chelsea for Graham Potter back in September when Todd Boehly made the English manager what is thought to be the most expensive in his position ever. Potter replaced fan favourite Thomas Tuchel in the hotseat at Stamford Bridge and has had a rough time of things since then.
The 47-year-old was seen as the next cab off the rank at the time and had even been tipped to take charge of the national team in the future too. After starting the season well with the Seagulls, Boehly made the bold move to put all his eggs in the Potter basket.
Sitting tenth in the league at this stage of the season a far cry from the expectations at the club at the start of the season and even after Potter took over in mid-table. Although Champions League progression has papered over some of the cracks in recent weeks there are still questions being asked of Potter.
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With Brighton still above them in the league and in much better shape to contest for European football next season under the tutelege of Roberto De Zerbi, Potter's fit for the Chelsea job is still to be fully proven. Now, with the south coast club publishing their 2021/22 accounts, the true cost of Potter has been confirmed.
It is written: "On 18 September 2022 the Club was deliged to appoint Roberto de Zerbi as its new Head Coach following the loss of Graham Potter and his team to Chelsea a few days earlierin a day that the saw the club receive a sum of £21.5m."
That fee is believed to be split with around £20m paid for Potter alone and the rest being for numerous members of his backroom staff including Billy Reid, Bjorn Hamberg, Bruno Saltor and Kyle Macaulay. Meanwhile Paul Winstanley also made the switch from the AMEX Stadium to SW6 but that was seperate.
Chelsea also paid Brighton £60m for Marc Cucurella over the summer as well as loaning them Levi Colwill and selling Billy Gilmour for nearly £10m. This is just a small part in the aggressive spending so far under Boehly-Clearlake with over £600m in total spent on transfers since their takeover in May 2022.
The fruits of this are yet to be seen and the publication and confirmation of the cost of Potter being made available at a time that he is still largely underperforming is unlikely to help matters either
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