Eyebrows have been raised by Brighton spending nearly £200million in the summer transfer window. What was the strategy there?
Bloom: At the start of the window, we knew there were going to be opportunities, we knew there were going to be quite a few incomings, quite a few changes. We probably did not envisage quite as much.
You never quite know how a transfer window will transpire — whether the players you want to bring in are going to be within the budget and are available — but the circumstances have allowed this (to happen).
The PSR circumstances of other clubs are well known. Other bigger clubs on the continent have not quite got the budgets to compete with some of the Premier League teams, so some of the players that perhaps would not have been available to us in the past have become available. And the way our transfers have worked in the last two or three windows has meant we lost some key players who we were not always able to replace straight away and we have invested a lot in young players.
You are always looking to improve and I think we have done that with the business we’ve completed. We think we have a great chance of competing at the top end of the table.
Our long-term vision of (regular finishes in the Premier League) top 10 doesn’t change, but certainly this season we think we have a great chance of qualifying for Europe. We had an amazing time in Europe last season (coming sixth in 2022-23 meant Brighton qualified for
UEFA competition for the first time in the club’s history and they went on to reach the last 16 of the
Europa League).
We think we can do the same this season and there is no doubt that, with seven of our competitors playing in a revamped Europe with more games, it gives teams like Brighton a better chance of competing in the Premier League.
Do the future changes to PSR impact your strategy going forward — not just at Brighton but because of what might happen to other clubs?
Bloom: We are always within the limits and we will always be fine while I am chairman. Certainly, we were aware of other clubs and other situations. We’ve had a very odd situation, which I think is a one-off this year, whereby certain clubs had to sell by June 30, which is the end of the year for most clubs’ accounts.
(Yankuba) Minteh was a player we had followed for a while. We were certainly aware of him a year ago when he went to Newcastle (from Odense in Denmark). He had a fabulous season (in 2023-24 on loan at Dutch club Feyenoord). We knew about that and that deadline and we were able to get him in; a superb player, a young player who will hopefully improve as well. We were able to do that at the end of June and that was because of the PSR issues that certain clubs had.
As PSR stands, clubs have been trying to find loopholes. Are they gaining an unfair advantage?
Bloom: With any set of financial rules, clubs will try to take advantage of loopholes. As long as it is within the rules, then they are allowed to. It is up to the Premier League when there are loopholes to change the rules to stop them.
I think the new rules — which hopefully will come in over the next six months, for next season and beyond, when it is all one season at a time — will reduce the amount of loopholes, the amount of ways clubs can get around it. So I am just hoping that going forward the rules do allow significant losses for each club, allow for investment, and I am hoping that Premier League (club) owners will stay within the rules much more than perhaps has happened in the past.
Has that dynamic worked more smoothly so far than it did with Roberto De Zerbi?
Bloom: The process hasn’t changed, the philosophy hasn’t changed, but it is fair to say Fabian has bought into it
a lot more than his predecessor. Roberto had thoughts on certain players, but that is not the way we as a club work. The club will decide on the players potentially to bring into the club, in conjunction with the head coach.
It’s not a situation, the way we work, that the head coach says, ‘I like this player and that player’, and that’s what we do (in terms of signings). If a head coach has some ideas, that comes in as part of the process, but a head coach really liking a player has got to fit many characteristics, it has got to fit with the data analysis we do.
When Roberto came in (in September 2022, after Graham Potter left to manage Chelsea), we explained the process and the philosophy. If there is non-alignment between the head coach and the club, things are never going to work out long-term.
So much of what you do is about forward planning. Of course, you are still young (Bloom is 54). You have already said you are going to be at Brighton for years to come, but what would be the succession plan for the club without Tony Bloom?
Bloom: The great thing is we have great people working across the whole club, so when I am no longer chairman I would be very hopeful that my successor will inherit a very strong, very stable club with a brilliant fanbase and hopefully it can continue to have success for many years.
I foresee myself being here long into the future. Obviously, I could get knocked over by a bus tomorrow and hopefully things would be fine, but I am hoping to still be here in 15 to 20 years.