Owner Tony Bloom is a pivotal figure. The 52-year-old has a lifelong association with Brighton, with his grandfather Harry the club’s vice-chairman in the 1970s.
Bloom injected finance to allow Amex Stadium to be completed and, in the club’s latest accounts to 30 June 2021, has provided interest-free loans amounting to £337m.
Beyond that, according to chief executive Paul Barber, he sets the tone for how the entire club operates.
“It is the chairman’s vision,” says Barber. “It is my job to organise the club, motivate the staff and bring that vision to life.
“Where we are now has come through a combination of planning, resilience and having a sense of where we want to get to and how we are going to get there.
“We try and plan for situations other clubs might get rocked by. The aim is to come out of the other side in at least as strong a position as we went into it and ideally better.”
The approach has seen Brighton develop a reputation for being one of the top flight’s most uncompromising negotiators.
When Chelsea came for Cucurella, Brighton had a valuation they refused to budge from. In the couple of days from that point to negotiations being concluded, club sources say extra millions were added to the eventual fee.
Even though Ecuador midfielder Moises Caicedo issued a statement saying he wanted to leave during last month’s transfer window amid interest from Chelsea and Arsenal, Brighton let it be known they were not prepared to do business so close to the deadline.
Arsenal kept pushing but Brighton stood firm, telling Caicedo to stay away from training until the window had closed.
“The best clubs are really found out when their resilience is tested and when their plan doesn’t quite go the way they expected,” says Barber.
“At certain times, you have to show the ambition of your club is as important as the ambition of any other club.
“There are times when there is pressure from the agent, the player, the media, the other club, and fans of the other club try and put you in a corner.
“Sometimes the best way to deal with that is to remove some of the pressure by doing some things that people maybe think is strange at the time but made sense to us. We took the player out of the firing line, disarmed the agent and took the heat out of the situation.”
