Over the past 12 years, Brighton & Hove Albion have changed their manager five times, sold countless players and lost a multitude of staff.
Uncertainty over Roberto De Zerbi’s future beyond the end of the season lingers, with the straight-talking Italian head coach being linked to other jobs in recent weeks and also seeking assurances about the scale of squad strengthening that will take place in the summer.
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A slump in form over the past two months or so has seen Brighton knocked out of the last 16 of the Europa League by Roma, lose at Wolverhampton Wanderers in the fifth round of the FA Cup, and drop from seventh to 12th in the Premier League table.
And while talks over a new deal for De Zerbi concluded without him committing his future to the club, stability at the top endures. Chief executive Paul Barber recently signed a new contract until 2030 — stretching his relationship with owner-chairman Tony Bloom to nearly two decades. They will still be together long after De Zerbi and most of the current first-team squad have left.
Their partnership has underpinned the club’s rise from the Championship into an established Premier League outfit that competed in Europe for the first time this season. They also have a reputation for shrewd recruitment and housekeeping — Brighton made a Premier League record profit across all clubs of almost £123million last season.
The secret behind the success of the Bloom and Barber alliance can be summed up in two words: mutual trust. That has existed since they first got together through Bloom’s need for somebody he could rely on to run a precious part of his business empire effectively and efficiently on a daily basis, as well as Barber’s desire to return to English football.
Barber was already a leading administrator with a heavyweight CV when he teamed up with Bloom in 2012. He had been the FA’s director of communications and marketing for four years from 2000 to 2004.
He spent the next five and a half years as executive director of his boyhood club Tottenham Hotspur before moving to Canada to become chief executive of MLS club Vancouver Whitecaps for two years. Dropping into the second tier of English football was not on Barber’s agenda — until he met Bloom.
“A headhunter put us in touch,” Barber says. “I was looking to come back from Vancouver. I had gone quite a long way down the line with a Premier League club at that time.
“The headhunter said ‘Before you agree anything, will you talk to Tony Bloom?’. I talked to Tony and some of his people, heard the vision, which was very clear, very laser-focused, heard the financial commitment that he had already made and was prepared to make.
“I had never thought of dropping down to the Championship at that point of my career, but I was open-minded to doing so for the right club. And I just got this good feeling. I can’t describe it as anything more than that. Tony as a person, the other directors that I met, the vision for the club, his commitment to the vision and his financial wherewithal to deliver the vision.”
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Barber was shortlisted to make a presentation to the board about how he would bring Bloom’s vision for the club to life. Barber says: “Tony called me that evening and said we want to move forward.
“He said: ‘Before you go back to Vancouver, let’s get the contract done’. We sat and talked about my expectations, he talked about what his were. He said: ‘Let’s cut to the quick, here’s a piece of paper, you write down what you want, I’ll go away and get a coffee and come back’. I’m thinking I’m dealing with one of the world’s best poker players, a mathematician, hugely successful in his business career and he wants me to kick off the numbers.
“I wrote down a salary, a proposed bonus, some benefits. He came back and said: ‘I can do that, but I can’t do that’, puts it back. I cross out his number and put another number. He said: ‘I can live with that’. He told me to sign the piece of paper, which I did. He signed it, folded it and said: ‘There’s your contract’. I went back to Vancouver with that in my pocket.”
The early insight for Barber into the way Bloom operates did not end there. Barber says: “It was weird. I got back to Vancouver two or three weeks later and emailed him. I said: ‘I know we agreed everything, but I still haven’t had any paperwork’. He said: ‘You’ve got it, we shook hands’. I realised then the type of person I was dealing with. He wasn’t joking. He has been like that ever since.”
Bloom’s intuition has been evident on occasions when other clubs have come calling for Barber. “He has always been ahead of your contract and I know he has been like that with players,” Barber says. “So, before your next contract comes to an end, he is talking to you.
“I’ve had three or four other opportunities over the 12 years, but this is where Tony’s genius kicks in. They have always come after the latest new contract I have signed. He’s always been perceptive to know when somebody else is likely to come in for me.
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“David Dein (former Arsenal vice-chairman) once told me: ‘Don’t pick your football club, pick your owner’, and there has never been a truer statement in Tony’s case.”
The success of the men’s first team, expansion of the Amex Stadium capacity by 10,000 to 32,000, and financial wellbeing are not the only indicators of Brighton’s progression on and off the pitch over the 12 years that Bloom — who has poured almost £500m ($626m) of his personal wealth into the club — and Barber have been shaping the club’s future.
They have a plush training centre at Lancing, regarded as one of the best of its kind in the Premier League, with a purpose-built hub for the Women’s Super League team and girls’ football. In 2019, they agreed a 12-year sponsorship deal with long-time partners American Express, believed to be worth over £100m.
Bloom, 54, describes Barber as “pivotal in our success and ongoing progress”, but what is the owner-chairman like to work for? Bloom, after all, is not always Mr Nice Guy. He can be ruthless when he feels circumstances justify decisive action. Chris Hughton, the manager who steered Brighton to promotion from the Championship in 2017, was sacked after they narrowly avoided relegation in their second season in the Premier League.
“He has a very clear vision for the club and he never waivers from that,” says Barber. “It evolves, but it never goes backwards, it always moves forwards, which is brilliant because he is always pushing all of us to be better and to think further ahead.
“He is incredibly fair, incredibly loyal. A very hard taskmaster in his own way, but not unreasonably so. He is always pushing you to be better, the club to be better. He is hot on the detail, hot on the numbers, but overall scrupulously fair. Probably one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked for without in any way being undemanding.
“It’s a really strange balance because when you have a boss that is constantly demanding, sometimes it can feel relentless and therefore unfair, but he is the opposite of that. He is incredibly fair and a great guy to work for.”
There will be further bumps in the road for Brighton, such as the run of two points from the last 18 available, but 57-year-old Barber will be implementing Bloom’s plans for the future development of the club until he is close to the age of retirement.
Barber says: “We feel that there’s more we can achieve and it would be amazing to win a trophy and be part of that because that would be a significant landmark in our club’s history.
“But also just to continue being able to compete with much bigger clubs with much bigger resources. That gives us all a massive thrill because that is top-level sport, great entertainment.
“And it gives people hope and encouragement that other clubs of Brighton’s size and stature can come through and do similar. So it’s good for the game as a whole when we can do that and that gives me a lot of pleasure.
“I must admit, when I joined Brighton, I wasn’t sure how far we could go. Tony has convinced me over a number of years there is no ceiling, we can keep pushing.”
(Top photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
