March 03, at the Football Business Summit held by the Financial Times, Brighton
The team’s CEO Paul Barber talked about the development of the club and made fun of Chelsea.
Paul Barber: “It’s really important to get into the Premier League, it’s important to stay in the Premier League, it’s important to sell out, it’s important to get support from sponsors around the world, and now we’re getting into player deals like everything else.
important pattern too.
It means we have to fish in different ponds, we can never compete with the biggest clubs in the world, buy the best players, or be at the top of the transfer market to buy them.
We have to find players who haven’t developed yet, we can continue to develop them, and then eventually sell them.
I’m happy to call Chelsea anytime, it’s absolutely fine.
As well as telling our manager, I’ve told the cleaning staff at the club to be careful, who knows, they might be targeted by other clubs too.
In all seriousness, a club of our size can only be truly competitive if the deals are good.
All the things a football club should do, we should sell our home tickets and get the best sponsors.
For us, Premier League revenue is very important and TV revenue is vital to what we do.
The only way we can really compete and make money for our owners is by doing good deals and that means finding players that other clubs can’t find.
Bring them in from less developed and cheaper markets, train them well, develop them well, and eventually, if they do well, sell them at a profit.
“