It’s no hyperbole to say that the club was 28 minutes from extinction in 1997. The Goldstone Ground, home of Brighton & Hove Albion for 95 years, had been sold to property developers, behind the fans’ backs, and the team had nowhere to play. The undertakers had just about finished measuring up the entire club, when the fans decided enough was enough.
The story of the campaigns – ‘the football protest movement by which all others are judged’ – to keep the club alive has been well documented, and Matt Lorenzo’s 2024 film ‘Stand or Fall – The Remarkable Rise of Brighton & Hove Albion’ offers further insight and – 27 years later – a historical perspective.
Today, Brighton & Hove Albion is a top 10 English football club. At the time of writing, it was sitting proudly in upper echelons of the Premier League. Off the pitch, Its finance figures are impressive, and the opinion from all quarters around the game is just how well run the club is.
And that is largely down to the vision and tenacity of two men – Tony Bloom MBE and Paul Barber OBE.
The city of Brighton & Hove is also a major business beneficiary of the Albion’s rise. Alan Wares takes a look at a proud 123 year-old institution that is showing other outfits how to run a football club successfully with a sustainable business model.
But first, a brief (-ish) history lesson
In November 1993, at an Emergency General Meeting (EGM); some of the directors (not all were invited) had arbitrarily changed a clause in the club’s Articles of Association, dispensing with a rule that said – should the Albion be wound up, any monies left over would be distributed among sports clubs across Sussex. It meant someone stood to clean up upon the dissolution of Brighton & Hove Albion.
In July 1995, news leaked that the Goldstone Ground, the club’s home since 1902, had been sold. After initially denying this fact, the club said it would play at Fratton Park, home of Portsmouth FC.
This, somewhat alarmingly, was news to Portsmouth.
So began a painful and at times, toxic two-year battle between the fans and the board of directors. The protests were colourful and imaginative in presentation—boycotts, whistle protests, walk-outs, and marches through Brighton and central London.
Meanwhile, Brighton & Hove Albion were about to become homeless by the end of the 1995/96 season.
The protests were always going to be in vain if the fans succeeded in ridding Archer of the club, but with no one else to take the reins. Dick Knight, himself a lifelong Brighton fan, took control of the club in the summer of 1997.
The Football League sanctioned a temporary home for Brighton – provided the Albion were back ‘home’ within three years. It meant a 150-mile round trip to Gillingham for each ‘home’ game. At the same time, 17 of the same Football League’s member clubs voted to expel them.
This meant getting the club back to Brighton, and the fans having another campaign on their hands. An ambivalent local council and an actively hostile community needed to be persuaded that, to play at Withdean, they would only be there for three years.
In 1999, the Albion returned to its home town, at the sports complex at Withdean. Meanwhile, now that the club was back, another fight was bumping down the pipeline. Withdean was never going to be sufficient as a permanent home. So plans were put in place for a 22,874-capacity stadium near Falmer.
The original planning application was submitted in 2001, approved by Brighton & Hove City Council in 2002 and – after two Public Inquiries, and countless campaigning for and against by those affected (and even those unaffected), – was eventually approved by Central Government in 2007.
TONY BLOOM
During all this time, from 1999 to 2008, the club was kept afloat by Dick Knight, a man whose main achievement – aside from saving the club in 1997, and getting approval for the stadium – was being able to persuade like-minded Brighton business people (Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim being the most famous) to chip in, lest the club be declared bankrupt. Playing in a hopelessly inadequate converted athletics stadium – with the extra handicap of needing to spend millions upon millions on the planning process – was taking its toll.
However, once the club had approval for the stadium, it needed to be paid for, and the timing of the 2008 ‘banking crash’ could not have come at a worse time. In short, no one was prepared to fund the (officially) £93 million project.
Tony Bloom was born in Brighton on March 20th 1970 and was educated at Lancing College. He subsequently gained a maths degree at the University of Manchester.
His uncle Ray Bloom was - and still is - a board member, while his grandfather Harry Bloom had served as de facto Vice-Chairman in the 1970s. Tony had been another of the figures in the background whom Dick Knight had persuaded to help fund the club during its tenure at Withdean.
By the time of the banking crash, Bloom informed the board that he would be prepared to fund the entire project. His price was Chairmanship of Brighton & Hove Albion, and on May 18th 2009, Bloom took over control of the club.
“When I first started going in 1977,” Bloom told The Albion Roar podcast in 2019, “and it was all very positive, and we were winning lots of games, getting promotion, I thought ‘this is what football is all about’, it was great. Then, we had the FA Cup Final in 1983, and things started going downhill.
“But I always knew we had a great fanbase, so when we got to 2009, I had the confidence - some people might call it misplaced confidence - that we would one day get to the Premier League. But we needed that stadium. And with the stadium, I also realised we needed a training ground fit for the Premier League. That was obvious to me fairly early on.”
After 14 years without the club having a permanent home, The American Express Stadium opened in August 2011.
RUNNING THE CLUB
Running a professional football club requires a certain set of skills, and these are not always easy to come by from anyone outside the game. Bloom’s style is to collaborate rather than dictate. He is smart and shrewd enough to know what he doesn’t know.
Tony’s humility, to the point of reserved guardedness (occasionally a sliver of information ekes its way out of the boardroom), is evident when talking about his role as Chairman. It’s a privileged role, and he is acutely aware of the notion that Chairmen are only ever custodians of the club; it’s the club itself and the fans who are the constant.
As Andy Naylor wrote in The Athletic in 2020, “Tony is someone who has always wanted as many opinions as possible. He listens and respects those opinions before making a final decision. He wants a diverse set of people around him.
“Often people in power don’t tend to listen to other people. They think they have got somewhere because they have superior judgement. He is the opposite. He wants to take stuff from a lot of people. You can tell when someone asks for an opinion but doesn’t engage or challenge it. They aren’t really interested in it. He relentlessly engages.
“He inspires loyalty through strong integrity. You have a strong feeling for the sort of person he is. In the football world, there is a lot of chicanery and negativity with agents but he will do the right thing, even if it hurts him.”
PAUL BARBER
Paul Barber was born on April 8th 1967 in north London. He grew up a fan of Tottenham Hotspur and previously worked as a Commercial Director at the Football Association and an Executive Director at his beloved Spurs. At the time he was head-hunted by Tony Bloom, Barber was working for Vancouver Whitecaps in Canada and had made it known he was interested in returning to England.
Despite initial reluctance on Barber’s part, just under a year after the new stadium had opened, Bloom appointed a new Chief Executive.
Leap forward 12 years to today, and with both men still working in their respective roles, albeit at an organisation that has seen many changes, those plans for progression still hold. Barber is under contract at Brighton & Hove Albion until 2030, and Bloom - well, he is in it for life.
The club is helped by its ongoing partnership with American Express, especially with the latter’s caveat of having funds to specifically promote the women’s game. “American Express has changed the way we have business partners. They’ve been involved with the club for the past 10 years, and we are delighted that they have renewed. It’s so important to the club that we have a vibrant and successful women’s team,” states Barber.
Paul Barber is arguably the most respected administrator in world football today. He has also delivered lectures and keynote presentations at universities and business schools, as well as being a guest lecturer on FIFA’s Diploma in Club Management. And that doesn’t include his accolades of winning Football CEO of the Year several times from several different bodies.
TODAY
There is a widely-held view across the footballing universe that ‘Brighton & Hove Albion is known as a ‘well-run club’. Arguably, many venture to comment, that it’s the best-run club in England; certainly in the mad circus that is the Premier League.
It’s an opinion that has been put to both men on several occasions, and their response is as constant as it is humble as it is simple. Looking in from the outside, whatever Brighton & Hove Albion does within football is often met with approval, and yet, as Barber states unequivocally, it’s not rocket science.
And it’s these aspects which Tony Bloom and Paul Barber adhere to when making business decisions – active succession planning; honed recruitment policies; effective HR; staff welfare and benefits; high-end, in-house company values; customer service; customer liaison - and on and on. With regards to customer service, it’s incredible that there are at least two Premier League clubs who refuse to actively participate in open dialogue with the fanbase.
‘Their recruitment is second-to-none,’ is an oft-quoted follow-up comment, and there is a fair amount of merit in that opinion. The aforementioned succession planning is designed to kick in at a moment’s notice. It’s highly probable that, even though Head Coach, Fabian Hürzeler, has only been in the job for five months, the club already has a replacement lined up.
That’s not to say Hürzeler’s job is on the line - far from it. However, should the proverbial No.19 bus come along, the club must be prepared to act to ensure a consistent, smooth transition.
This succession planning applies to everyone within the ‘Core 25’ that the club has identified as being key to the daily running of the business. The only senior member not on the succession planning list is Tony Bloom himself. And he already knows what he intends to do when it’s eventually time to let go.
The club has also found itself ranked at No.29 on the Forbes list of the world’s richest football clubs (though some gloss is taken off by realising 11 Premier League clubs are ahead of them on that list. The 2025 list is expected to see Brighton climb higher.
Barber has stated on many occasions how grateful he is to have a boss like Tony Bloom. They discuss football, business, the next step – anything business-related – daily. The only time business is not mentioned is on matchday. That’s when Bloom goes into ‘fan mode’, and company business is strictly forbidden. Barber occasionally joins him on that step, but as a Spurs boy at heart, one does wonder the extent to which Brighton has taken over his soul.
One pertinent pointer may well be when I spoke to Paul - he is very accessible, even on matchdays – at a Brighton v Spurs game, and he did refer to the Seagulls as ‘we’.
HEALTHY FIGURES
In 2003, when the club was at the first Public Inquiry, seeking to obtain permission for the stadium, it highlighted the potential financial benefits in terms of jobs and income to the city. Martin Perry, then CEO of Brighton & Hove Albion, told the Planning Inspectors that the stadium, and all its associated activities, could bring the city of Brighton & Hove an estimated £23m to the local economy every year. This statement was met with derision, scorn, and no small amount of dismissive laughter from the room.
In 2023, Marshall Regen, management consultants based in Hove, issued a report estimating that Brighton & Hove Albion’s contribution to the local economy during the season 2022/23 was around £612m. The figure is taken from direct and indirect financial transactions as a result of what the club calls ‘the matchday experience’.
In central Brighton, when the Albion are at home, the pubs are full and, depending on the time of kick-off and the location of the visiting team, hotels fill up fairly quickly too.
The club’s most recent set of financial figures – for the season ending 2022/23 state that, off the pitch, Brighton’s pre-tax profit surged from £24m to a very impressive £133m. Revenue increased by £30m (17%) from £174m to £204m, which was the club’s highest ever, while profit from player sales just about doubled from £62m to £121m. At the same time, Brighton managed to keep their costs under control, as operating expenses only rose £4m (2%) to £220m, while they had £2.5m net interest receivable.
The figures were also boosted by £25m other operating income, up from just £1m in the previous year, which included £23m compensation from Chelsea for the outgoing Graham Potter and his support staff. Profit after tax was lower at £123m after considering a £10m tax charge. That ‘profit’ figure of £123m is, incidentally, a Premier League record, and it is widely expected that the club will match – or get very close to – that figure in the next set of financial figures.
It also highlights the point that, despite the billions sloshing around the Premier League, how is it that so many clubs make such a loss on such a constant basis? Actually, the answer is well-known - salaries are exorbitant, bordering on stupid, but no one seems minded to change that.
WHAT NEXT?
Today, Brighton & Hove Albion is in the best position it has ever been in since its humble genesis upstairs at the Seven Stars in Ship Street in 1901 – both on and off the pitch. It directly and indirectly provides almost 2,000 jobs in the club, and through its caterers and via associated activities.
It is seen across British, European and world football as a progressive club, representing what many residents and visitors feel is a progressive city, especially with the charitable arm of the club - Brighton & Hove Foundation – and its noisy support for Brighton Pride every year.
Plans are in place to promote the women’s game further by building a bespoke women’s stadium in the city. It will be the first of its kind in Europe and only the second in the world. A new site needs to be identified first.
Tony Bloom and Paul Barber are considered two of the most highly-respected football administrators today. Their vision, teamwork and leadership are a beacon in football surprisingly few are following – more fool them.
It is, therefore, no surprise that they have both received awards from His Majesty King Charles III. Bloom was appointed MBE in 2024 for services to association football and to the community in Brighton, while Barber was appointed an OBE (‘just an Old Boy of Edmonton’, he called it) in 2023 for services to association football.
The pair have everyone facing the same direction - a rarity within the business of football. Whatever metric you wish to measure the club by, it is now looking to confidently stake its claim at the top table, and now has the framework in place to do so.
