{"id":291828,"date":"2023-09-23T22:34:31","date_gmt":"2023-09-23T22:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tellmysport.com\/?p=291828"},"modified":"2023-09-23T22:34:31","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T22:34:31","slug":"meet-the-brighton-staff-helping-the-club-on-their-quest-for-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tellmysport.com\/soccer\/meet-the-brighton-staff-helping-the-club-on-their-quest-for-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Brighton staff helping the club on their quest for glory"},"content":{"rendered":"
Brighton have received a lot of praise for their progress and football philosophy, and there are many staff members who are working very hard behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
Manager Roberto De Zerbi is at the forefront of proceedings, but the new club chef, the player liaison officer and the social media manager are all contributing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mail Sport provides an insight into the various staff behind the scenes at Brighton.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Alongside manager Roberto De Zerbi, many other staff make the club tick behind the scenes<\/p>\n
THE CHEF – WILL CARVALHO<\/span> Quality and variety are key to feeding the players. \u2018I try to do different things and not repeat dishes often,\u2019 he says. \u2018 The food must be tasty and different each day, surprising even. That is why there\u2019s a different flavour porridge every morning.\u2019<\/p>\n He sees his task as a simple equation: needing to fulfil the dietary requirements of elite sportsmen, while making food they love.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chef Will Carvalho arrived at Brighton this summer and his enthusiasm is infectious<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kitchen staff at Brighton’s training ground feed around 270 people per day, and Carvalho takes a hands-on role in hotels on away trips<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Carvalho\u2019s tasks include going to hotels on away trips and taking a hands-on role in kitchens where he has already forwarded his menus. He is aiming to build a team of 10 chefs to feed 270 people a day at the training ground alone, between 8am and around 2pm. Free high-quality food is available to all staff for breakfast and lunch, and increasingly the players are taking bags of food home for dinner.<\/p>\n Carvalho\u2019s enthusiasm is infectious. When he talks about plans for the next Premier League home game and post-match fare in the dressing room, he\u2019s envisioning sushi platters, a burrito station and a grill station.\u00a0<\/p>\n He is also going to introduce a fake Oreos milkshake to the players\u2019 canteen menu. \u2018It hasn\u2019t got Oreos in it, but it tastes like it has,\u2019 Carvalho (right) says.<\/p>\n TECHNICAL DIRECTOR – DAVID WEIR<\/span><\/p>\n The long list that ended in Verbruggen\u2019s recruitment went across the desk of Brighton\u2019s technical director, David Weir, a stalwart centre-half for years with Everton and Rangers who played for Scotland until he was 41. His portfolio of responsibilities including anything at the training ground that helps players to improve, technically, club analysts, sports science and medicine, the academy, the loan arrangements that help young players develop, and, famously, recruitment.<\/p>\n He works with the heads of all those departments, and liaises with the board.<\/p>\n \u2018I can\u2019t tell a doctor how to treat a patient, or tell an analyst how to clip a game, or tell Roberto how to pick the team,\u2019 he says. But he can put in place systems to assist.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise that Weir won\u2019t divulge information about the \u2018secret sauce\u2019 data that comes from the StarLizard company that informs much of Bloom\u2019s professional gambling. It\u2019s massively complex, proprietary, exclusive to Brighton among football clubs, and evidently best-in-class, tracking more players in more ways than any comparable system.<\/p>\n \u2018No doubt data is very important but we [also] have eyes on players. It\u2019s not just a numbers game,\u2019 Weir insists.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Brighton technical director David Weir says that the club’s approach isn’t just based on data<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The club have a detailed progression plan in place and initially set out to become a top-10 club<\/p>\n \u2018Recruitment is a combination of lots of things [including data, traditional scouting, background checks] \u2026 We\u2019ve been really lauded for recruitment but it\u2019s also about [our reputation for] how players are treated and looked after when they\u2019re here \u2026 We give young players opportunities.\u2019<\/p>\n But back to the data. Is is basically a clever algorithm? \u2018It\u2019s an objective measure that challenges your subjective opinion \u2026 fundamentally [the output] is a determinant of quality.\u2019<\/p>\n Sometimes even Weir is surprised by who Brighton manage to sign, the loan for Ansu Fati a recent case in point. \u2018Signing him sent a strong message,\u2019 he says. \u2018The fact Barcelona and the agent let him come to us says a lot. We were even a bit surprised we got it done to be honest.\u2019<\/p>\n PLAYER LIAISON OFFICER – STEVE GIBBON<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve\u00a0been waiting to speak to Steve Gibbon for most of the week. He\u2019s been too busy to talk because his role as \u2018Player Care Lead\u2019 can be all-consuming at times. The same position is commonly known as \u2018Player Liaison Officer\u2019, or in layman\u2019s terms, the person who sorts out all kinds of everyday issues for players and their families, especially foreigners.<\/p>\n In such an important week for the club, Gibbon has spent countless hours trying to satisfy ticket requests for the players and their families and entourages. But an hour before kick-off tonight I get a text that Steve is available for a chat. He has a colourful CV, managing greyhound stadiums, betting shops, pubs. I suggest that might have helped in his years in his current job to find ways out of various scrapes for Brighton players. But Gibbon insists he rather deals with multiple mundane, and sometimes sad, and often banal problems: how to buy or hire a car; how to pay a bill.<\/p>\n Housing and schooling are key issues where he provides guidance to players. I\u2019m told by one staff member that the traditional mantra of many player liaison officers is \u2018Happy wife, happy life\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018That is seriously key,\u2019 says Gibbon. \u2018Often with new players coming in you tend to concentrate more on the wife than the player.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ansu Fati is one of the players to benefit from the work as player liaison officer Steve Gibbon, as he is looking for a chef for the youngster to help him settle in<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t sexist, but a practical issue for the partners of men in a peripatetic industry. Players tend to focus on playing and leave partners to deal with schools and family life. Gibbon assists with that.<\/p>\n He reveals current things on his to-do list are 1) find a personal chef for Ansu Fati, and 2) regular dialogue with immigration officials at Gatwick and Heathrow over visiting family members of his players who haven\u2019t got all the right paperwork.<\/p>\n Ansu Fati eats two meals a day whenever he\u2019s at the training ground, and loves that food; but wants a chef for other times. \u2018But it has to be the right person, a good fit,\u2019 says Gibbon. They\u2019ll need to form a bond with the player, and cook the Spanish cuisine he wants.\u2019<\/p>\n Gibbon has had to find a dog walker for a player who needed to travel and leave a pet behind. Since Brexit his team have formed business relationships with immigration officials at London\u2019s biggest airports, where, on a weekly basis, a relative or friend of a player will arrive and face a potential hurdle to entry because of paperwork.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gibbon tackles a whole host of issues for players, including finding them dog walkers or helping them pay bills<\/p>\n Inevitably Gibbon provides the reassurance that the incomer will be accommodated because their host is \u2018good for the money\u2019 and the guest will \u2018usually get the 180-day stamp in their passport\u2019.<\/p>\n Gibbon says he has stories respectively about a washing machine, a dog, a beach and Tenerife that he cannot tell me. The four elements were in different stories, he assures me.<\/p>\n His most emotional moment he says was a few years ago when a Brighton player from overseas called him in tears to say his father had died suddenly and he needed to go home. Gibbon was the first person he\u2019d called, so close was the bond.<\/p>\n \u2018He was sobbing,\u2019 Gibbon says. \u2018We sorted him a private jet and I rang the manager to tell him what had happened.\u2019<\/p>\n SOCIAL MEDIA GURU – MATT BISHOP<\/span><\/p>\n Matt Bishop is Brighton\u2019s \u2018social media executive\u2019, an amiable 28-year-old journalism graduate with sole responsibility for every item posted on the men\u2019s team\u2019s X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn accounts. His digital numbers thanks to the 3-1 win have been brilliant. A single TikTok he put together about the finale of the uninterrupted 30-pass move for 2-0 is heading towards 3 million views as we speak.<\/p>\n Bishop is uncertain whether some players know he has a name. Literally everyone at Brighton calls him \u2018Admin\u2019, as in administrator of the club\u2019s social media. He talks me through the follower numbers on Twitter (960,000), Facebook (1.5m), Instagram (1.5m) and TikTok (2.5m) and explains how the content is subtly different for each audience.<\/p>\n \u2018Twitter is aimed at football fans in general and club diehards. If you lose, you post and everyone is telling you to f**k off! Facebook has similar content but the audience is much more international and you can focus on geo-located posts. Facebook is massive in Africa so if there\u2019s content on an African player, you amplify it on Facebook. Insta is obviously visual. TikTok needs to be short and snappy, typically 15-second posts that tell the story quickly and slickly, always with video action.\u2019<\/p>\n Followers can surge on a single signing: Ansu Fatu and Mitoma have been two cases in point.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Social media executive Matt Bishop is responsible for every item posted on the men’s team’s X (formerly Twitter),Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn accounts<\/p>\n \u2018My job is much easier when the team is winning and players buy into it,\u2019 he says. And do the players buy into it? \u2018Yes, they\u2019re great,\u2019 he says. \u2018But they are relentless in winding me up, swearing when I\u2019m trying to get content so I can\u2019t actually use it. And taking the p*** out of me. But it comes from a good place!\u2019<\/p>\n At a match when a goal is scored, Bishop aims to have a polished tweet and celebratory graphic posted inside 10 seconds, before posting on Facebook and Insta. \u2018It\u2019s hectic, but it\u2019s doable,\u2019 he says. \u2018If the internet is working at the club you\u2019re at. Which it isn\u2019t always.\u2019<\/p>\n The club\u2019s most successful post to date was a film welcoming Alexis Mac Allister back to the club after winning the World Cup. It was the single most-viewed post of any Premier League in 2023, garnering some 17m impressions across Brighton\u2019s own channels, and tens of millions more as other platforms repurposed it. \u2018We got very excited because Lionel Messi commented on it!\u2019 says Bishop.<\/p>\n His biggest blunder was accidentally posting a photo of a plug socket, taken to illustrate an electrical problem to his girlfriend, in a post about centre-half Adam Webster returning from injury.<\/p>\n \u2018People started asking if it had a hidden meaning! I just had to own my mistake,\u2019 he says. \u2018The next time I posted about Adam, I also posted a plug socket emoji. It kept our fans entertained for a few days.\u2019<\/p>\n THE LAWYER – LLOYD THOMAS<\/span><\/p>\n One employee who knows this better than most is Lloyd Thomas, 37, an Oxford University law graduate who became Brighton\u2019s general counsel in late 2021, joining from Arsenal, where he was an in-house lawyer. Thomas deals with everything from fine print of all Brighton\u2019s transfer and loan deals, in and out, every player contract, all sponsorship agreements, and even the ticketing Ts&Cs and regulatory issues over signing foreign players. The variety appeals. \u2018There\u2019s lots of scope for clever drafting, add-ons, sell-ons, there are ways you can bolster your position in various ways.\u2019<\/p>\n Dealing with agents, or rather their commissions, is important and will become more so when a new agent fee cap of six per cent of a players\u2019 wages is introduced next month. Thomas says he knows lawyers at other clubs where agents were demanding 20 per cent this summer in an attempted last hurrah to cash in.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lawyer Lloyd Thomas works on issues including player contracts and sponsorship deals<\/p>\n Players typically have two contracts with their club: an employment contract and a Schedule 2 contract that lays out their specific wages, signing-on fees, loyalty bonuses, travel and accommodation terms and often personal performance bonuses payable for international caps and the like.<\/p>\n Fine print can be lucrative in other areas. When Graham Potter was poached by Chelsea in September last year, his contract, drafted before Thomas arrived but now needing enforcement, meant Brighton were received \u00a321.5m in compensation for Potter and his staff.<\/p>\n Presumably Roberto De Zerbi has a similarly big or even huger compensation clause? Thomas declines to comment. Lawyers have all the best stories, and rarely share them \u2026<\/p>\n
Will Carvalho\u00a0 arrived from Portugal as a flair summer signing \u2014 for the club kitchen. The 40-year-old has been Brighton\u2019s executive performance chef for a month. He has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, for leading rugby union clubs and national teams, and for the Brazilian women\u2019s football team. He speaks fluent Portuguese, French, Spanish and English.<\/p>\n