How to beat the 'Big 6' | Inside Premier League's 'best-run' club with Brighton CEO Paul Barber - The Sports Agents

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. Paul Barber, Brighton CEO. It's paper talk at the moment that he has signed a new contract. Can you tell us anything that confirms that? I would say the ink is just about drying on that new contract. There is just something beautifully funny about **** housery, isn't there? Chelsea being my best customer. Oh my God, Gabby, you were in a Winnebago. Outside. Behind the... Yeah. Certainly during my time there, Daniel was an incredible force for good. his sort of legacy at Tottenham will be seen more fondly in the future than perhaps it is right now.

0:41Welcome to the Sports Agents. Hello, Mark. Hi, Gabby. Brighton are going to be the focus of this podcast, but also a little bit wider on how to run a football club. Obviously, we talk many times about how well run Brighton are. So their CEO, Paul Barber, is going to join us. But the Brighton owner recently has got into sort of multi-club ownership. And he's doing very well, of course, north of the border. Very well with Hartz. So there's loads to talk to Paul about. In the week where they have announced that they have extended the contract of Fabian Herzler, who, of course, is there very young, still very young, even though he's been there a couple of seasons now, a German manager who was on the sports agents, of course, last year.

1:24You can check that episode out. And also announced that they're going to build a purpose-built stadium. When I say women only, obviously men are allowed to go watch the women's team. A purpose-built team for the women, yeah. Yeah, and I think it's going to be connected by a bridge from the Amex Stadium to the women's stadium, which is very similar to the Manchester City set-up here in Manchester. and the Brighton women are actually in really good form. It's kind of, which brings us on to one of last night's stories. They are directly involved in the fact that, of course, Manchester City are now champions because they didn't play last night, but Arsenal couldn't get the win they needed against Brighton.

2:06They got a draw, which means that Man City, after 10 years, I mean, it's a long time they've been without this title because Chelsea's domination, of course, over the last decade has kind of kept most people out. So congratulations to Manchester City. They didn't have any Champions League football, did they, this year? So they finished fourth last year. So the turnaround is quite big. And I was talking to Nader Manu, a former Manchester City player, yesterday about... Because this is also their first season under Andre Jeglerts, who is their new head coach. And he said what he thought was quite interesting was that Jeglerts was an appointment from outside the City group.

2:43So quite often these coaches, both on the men's and the women's side, move between the different teams that are in city and go get experience, whether that be in Melbourne or New York or Mumbai or whatever. But Yegler came in from outside that group. So Nadam thought that was quite... Is that telling in terms of the next appointment for the men's? They'll have to go outside the group for the men's job, you would think. You would have thought so. But it was just that. Well, unless it's like a Mareska type who has been inside for the men. but he thought it was really important that they got a fresh pair of eyes from outside the group on their women's set up because as you said they hadn't won that WSL title.

3:23And they're in the semi-final of the FA Cup as well so they're on for a double. As are Arsenal which brings us nicely onto the Champions League. It's been a great week of Champions League action it's funny for the first time on Tuesday night this season we were allowed to watch the game inside the stadium because normally what happens on prime is we have to go to a winnebago to watch on screens um in i know i know and yeah um because we we're obviously pitch side in our studio position um but then we have to go inside because of various uh decisions that are made about you know kind of where we sit and i like the fact you're gonna have to try and diplomatically get yourself out of this and of course there have been nights including at the Parc de France last week where you're desperate to be in the room right oh my god Gabby so you were in a you were in a Winnebago outside behind this yeah oh my god anyhow but so no but on Tuesday and they managed to get us observer seats and be in the stadium oh my gosh the atmosphere it was just incredible I think the the last Champions League game I was there for was was just as a kind of casual spectator.

4:37I nearly said fan then, but you know I'm not. I was a guest of somebody a couple of seasons ago and it was the quarterfinal against Bayern Munich. And that was a great night for Arsenal because they were back in the Champions League, they made a quarterfinal. But the difference in atmosphere, I can't even begin to tell you. It was incredible. That huge TIFO, the fireworks, the fans singing, it felt like a proper European night in a proper European stadium. And as we said on Tuesday morning, partly offset by the fact that City only drew on Monday night in the Premier League, because that completely will have changed the sort of body language.

5:08Yeah, and the optimism in the Arsenal fans. Grumpy Stephen Warner, who I was working with last night, halfway through the second half, went, do you think you could see anything if you're behind one of those flags? I was like, no. It's happened to go, can you put your flag down now, please? I need to see the rest of it. It was a special week, though, and Arsenal now have the monumental task, really, of overcoming PSG. What a final. Honestly, what a final that is going to be. I mean, the cliche is, it is attack against defence, but I cannot get enough of watching Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League when it gets to this stage.

5:50Every aspect of them, whether their centre-half, Paco, was man of the match last night, I just love watching him, but the midfield and the energy and that's before you even get to cover Scalia and Douay and so on and so forth. I think that's Kane's Ballon d 'Or gone now unless he wins the World Cup, isn't it? It feels like he had to get to the final. I love this story because I've had a lot of you probably have as well, I've already had a lot of texts, people saying any chance of a ticket? Do you know where I could get a ticket from? I've had a few of those. Well, there was an Arsenal fan who really believed in his team very early on in the season and booked a hotel in Budapest and obviously at the time you know there was hardly you know any kind of expense for him flights were cheap hotel was cheap and posted this on social media to brag and say look I got ahead of the game but it had his booking reference on it and a Spurs fan contacted the hotel and cancelled the booking so you know you just be careful about being too smug about these things I think is the is the answer to that and just one other story before we move on to our it's just like it doesn't matter where it is or who it happens to or what it is there is just something beautifully funny about shithousery isn't there and that is kind of right because you'll never know really who he is or what you know um and we're assuming he's a first fan um there's a story just to touch on before we get into the main body of this episode which um i thought was one of those kind of is that an april fall story um so uh the wxv which is the global series, the Autumn Global Series of Women's Rugby, has announced that they will introduce smaller balls this year.

7:27And the first quote I saw came from Zoe Harrison who has been on fire for England in the Six Nations, the fly half. Her kicking's been fantastic and she has said it's the worst decision ever made. This is a kind of, about 3 % smaller this ball, a 4.5 ball. As she points out she's been playing with the normal ball, if you like, the size 5, since she was 14 as probably have most female rugby players um and a lot of other big names in the in the sport are very much in opposition to this um but we had a little chat about this before and you made some interesting points about the arbitrary nature of changing the goalposts so to speak do you change the goalposts do you think the um the main issue here is as you've just said is that they have used that size ball for since well i think she says since she was 14 or something So if that has been the case, and she's a kicker as well, even the slightest change in the size of the ball is going to affect her technique.

8:28So I think for them at international level, their pushback is, we've been using this for a long time. It will materially affect our skills, isn't it? Yeah, that's what they're saying. And I think it's not that they're saying right now, it puts us in a kind of disadvantaged position in terms of how the sport looks and the progression of the sport. They're not saying they want to be compared. Rugby's been very careful and very clever, I think, in not saying we are the men's game. We're a very different looking game, you know, because of just the way that power is exerted on the pitch. And I think, as you say, it's because it really makes such a difference to the kickers.

9:06And it's not just the kicking game off the tee. It's everywhere else on the field that it makes a difference. So in terms of the pressure of the ball, I remember Kenny having an absolute nightmare against Italy once and missed pretty much all of his kicks because in warm up he was going, this ball is just way too, it's the pressure of the ball felt like it was bursting, you know. And the opposite kicker, who was actually the fly half, looked at Kenny and winked from Italy because he knew that they'd pressurised the balls quite hard because they liked it like that. So it can make a massive difference.

9:37And I'll tell you quickly a little story, though. It did precipitate me doing one of the most romantic things I've ever done in my life. Because I was watching this match while I was presenting ITV's Sports News on a Saturday. And I literally kept banging my head on the table every time I missed a kick. I was thinking, oh, my God, we'd only been going out about four months. And I could see, like, actually, we'd go about a year because they'd won the six stations the year before, five stations. And the colour was draining from his face. so I quickly looked online and I worked out I could get an Alitalia flight 11 30 that night to Rome and fly out and you know console my boyfriend and so I did that I got to the airport realized I forgot my passport had to go back home get the passport go anyway I got into Rome about two in the morning couldn't find him anywhere because of course by this point he smashed and and but he was thrilled to see me apparently got into a fight with a Scotland fan and we went for a wander to the Trevi Fountain and there was nobody at the Trevi Fountain.

10:31We just sat on the steps chatting away and he said he was about to propose to me and this guy walked around the corner, Scotland fan, and went, Kenny Logan, you had a shiter today by the wee. So that put the end to an impromptu marriage proposal. But I have to say, I'm glad he didn't propose on a day when he'd had his worst day on the tee and he was pissed. And was smacked. So anyway, how do we get from women's sporting? I don't know. Oh, because you let it go, yeah, Kenny's terrible kicking in that So the point, yeah, that's the point. So my point was, is there an arbitrary nature in when things are altered for men and women?

11:08And is it unsayable or unthinkable to say about certain sports or certain equipment compared to others? So I didn't actually know this until I was reading up on it, that the hurdles in the athletics for the women are slightly lower than the men, aren't they? I think the boundaries at the 100, for example, are brought in for the women's matches and then taken out for the men's matches. So you get a similar number of boundaries and so on and so forth. And I was in a restaurant with the golf team and with one of our hugely successful women's golfers. And we were having a discussion. She's a huge football fan.

11:54And she was saying, why is it sort of unthinkable or unsayable to talk about, say, the size of goals in women's football compared to men and they're identical to men's football. But it's all right to talk about the hurdles being shorter or the golf course being shorter for, you know, women's teams, men's teams or whatever. Don't forget, you can catch up with all our previous episodes, which we've mentioned a couple of actually on YouTube, Global Player, wherever you get your podcasts. And please hit subscribe and follow. And if you can, leave us a review. So let's talk about a really well-run football club next.

12:25Brighton, along with Bournemouth and Brentford, are often held up as the Premier League gold standard at the moment. Fabian Herzler, their manager, signed a new contract this week. We've talked about the new purpose-built stadium for the women's team as well. So Paul Barber, their CEO, will join us next.

12:47Paul Barber, welcome to the Sports Agents. We're very excited to talk to you because we often, Mark and I, allude to the fact that yourselves, in fact, it's the three B's, isn't it? I think, you know, yourselves, obviously, and Brentford are, you know, teams that are held up, aren't they? And Bournemouth are held up as teams that are exemplary in the way that they run themselves in terms of player recruitment, in terms of the finances. And there's a perception of punching above your weight in that respect. Is that fair, do you think? Well, I think if you looked at our player budgets, I think it is.

13:20If you looked at the size of our fan base, definitely. But also we've had to sort of develop ways of working smarter to compete. So in a way, I think we're all pushing each other all the time to be better, to find different ways of competing with the bigger clubs. And over the last, for us, nearly 10 years now, it's worked pretty well so there's still a lot of work so every season is a is a real struggle to to compete in the top half of the Premier League table but you know so far we've done okay. More often than not you make a profit as well so how how do you do that in a in a league and a sport where profit is quite hard to come by because it has to be more than just player sales doesn't it?

14:02Well the first and most fundamental thing of running any football club is you've got to maximize your ticket sales your hospitality sales your merchandise sales you've got to try and make the stadium work in between matches with events and conferences and concerts and things and then really for us player trading is is vital and that means sort of buying at the right price and then selling at the right time at the right price and those things are probably the most difficult to achieve because just when players get to the level where they're most valuable is when the coach coach most wants them um and we have to very gently say actually you know this is the time we need to trade and and that enables us to then keep our model going um it enables us to invest in our academy which gives us a chance to bring through young players it gives us a chance to develop other areas of the football club like our women and girls area and that in itself creates more revenue and that and that is a familiar pattern with the other two clubs i mentioned as well isn't it so when it comes to your manager recruitment and and there's a similar pattern there to a certain extent isn't it that they they have gone off to to what might be regarded as bigger jobs um is that kind of made patently clear in those opening exchanges and discussions that very much so yeah it's really important i think to be honest and transparent and be very clear about how we operate and how we have to operate this isn't just a choice because we like to make ourselves profitable it's a choice because it's the best way we can compete against clubs you know in the top half of the table typically the manchester united the chelsea's the arsenals liverpools who have got much bigger stadiums much bigger brands much bigger fan bases and therefore much bigger opportunities to bring in that revenue but but at what point at what point does that change slightly when the expectations are greater on you from your fans which which is which is understandable you are i think you're eighth at the time of recording this and very similar to Bournemouth and Brentford, you're all in a chase for European football.

16:01If I look at your strikers, you've got a 35-year-old and then you've got three who are either 18 to 21, 22. So your fans, and I'm guessing your head coach, is going, I'd quite like a 27-year-old big-name striker here. Yeah, you're not helping me here, Mark. No, I know I'm not, Paul. But I find it interesting from how you then approach that Because your success demands more, but your model demands what you've always been doing. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, I think as each year goes by, and next season will be our 10th in the Premier League, the expectations go up. And because of that, obviously our model has to modify ever so slightly because you can't compete, for example, in European competition if you are relying on very, very young players.

16:56and someone like Danny Welbeck who's been incredibly consistent, but obviously we're always cognisant of his age and how much time we can use him on the pitch and expect for him to play two games a week, for example. So getting that balance right is really difficult. And the last time we made it to Europe, the first time ever we made it to Europe, it was really difficult that season to balance all of the priorities. And I know Roberto De Zerbi had a really tough time in trying to give us the best chance of progressing in the Europa League, but at the same time maintaining a top half finish in the Premier League with a squad as relatively thin as ours was.

17:34So, yeah, it's a balancing act and we have to get better and better at it. The more we learn to be a Premier League club, the more we learn to compete in the top half of the table, there are no easy answers. And players in that sweet spot of maybe sort of 25 to 29 are the most expensive in Premier League, typically. So with that in mind and kind of extending Mark's point a little bit further, do you have a kind of a plan about how you then go, right, OK, now we are going to be a top six side. This is what happens and this is a different financial model. Or, you know, is where you are right now enough?

18:15Because obviously this season, Tony Bloom has experienced with the model, great success north of the border and clearly enjoying that success winning is good right and lifting a trophy is good it is and and we have modified the model slightly we signed Gael Pedro from Watford for around 30 million pounds we brought in Jorginho Rutter from Leeds for 40 million pounds those players are probably closer to that sweet spot we've been talking about but we're never going to be in the position of buying 50 60 70 80 million pound players so again a lot of it is communication with fans being transparent being realistic um trying to and they get it and they get it i think you know as always expectations rise and you'll get the extreme ends of any kind of spectrum of fans who won't accept that that model they want more success they want us to spend even more money but we just have to be clear and we have to be transparent we have to be open and we try and do as many fans forums each year as we can where tony myself uh Fabian will sit in front of the fans and take any questions.

19:20And some of those questions inevitably come around to the same sort of topics that Mark raised about, you know, how can we continue to sort of compete at the top end of the table if we're selling our best players just as they peak? To which our answer is that is how we compete at the top end of the table. That is our model. And, you know, sometimes it's going to be harder in certain seasons than others. And we will go through a period of selling players. And we did probably three years ago. and then we'll go through a period of restocking the shelves, as we say. And two summers ago, we spent almost£200 million doing that.

19:51So for a club of Brighton's size to even be spending£100 million 10 years ago would have been almost unthinkable. To be spending double that is incredible. But that's the way we work and we enjoy it because it gives us a chance to compete in a different way and that's part of the fun of running this club. We talked about the position you're in now and what could be achievable over the last three games of this season, go back three months and that didn't look like that was going to be the case at all. And Fabian was under some serious pressure from the fans, really, in that period. How hard is it for you personally to hold your nerve in that situation?

20:34Because it was tough, wasn't it? It was. And, you know, there was a section of fans that were vocal. unfortunately probably our worst performance in that period and our worst result in that period came at home to Crystal Palace with our biggest rivals and that was at home we lost it was a it was a poor performance and Fabian and the players took responsibility for that and that was when probably the the antagonism towards Fabian was at its peak but we've always said that we have to shut out the noise there's always going to be noise around the most popular sport in the world in the most tough and most competitive league in the world.

21:10And there are times when results won't necessarily track good performances and there are times when you'll get bad performances and bad results. And we went through that period. Do you leave him alone in that period? I mean, not literally leave him alone, but do you do everything that you would normally do or are you checking in more or would that make it worse? Yeah, the most important thing, I think, Mark, is to be consistent. and you know Tony and I are not the sort of chairman and chief executive that run down to the dressing room after a win and we're not the sort of guys to go down there after a loss we you know we try and be consistent and you know I always have a text exchange with Fabian after the game usually a few hours after the game because the emotions are running at their highest in those two or three hours after the final whistle good and bad and I always sort of text late after the game in the evening he usually texts straight back you know and I check in are you okay well done or tough luck or you know it was one of those days today wasn't it um but more supportive on both sides positive and negative and we'll always be very open with each other on what went well and what didn't um and then the next day usually within 24 hours you know we've both got the loss out of our system or we've both celebrated the win enough because there's always another game and i think during that period you know we made a few public utterances subtly and in the right time at the right time but I think any kind of major sort of declaration of support always gets twisted in some way as to be you know the vote of dreaded vote of confidence so we try and avoid stuff like that we we tend to try and keep it more private we were very very fortunate actually not long after the Palace game we had one of the fans events that I talked about and Fabian was due to attend and we said to him look you know it's been a tough week would you rather give it a miss myself and Glenn Murray were due to be there as well along with Mark McGee actually one of our former managers and Fabian said no um you know it's business as usual and it's been a tough week but it will be even tougher if I start hiding and to his absolute credit he turned up he spoke really well quite a few of the fans in the room admitted to him that they'd been part of the group that had been chanting against him at the the Palace game um and he spoke to them personally and they came away absolutely stunned at how he conducted himself and of course went on social media and said how great he was and everyone should get behind him and you could look to that event as actually being quite a big turning point because we then went on a really good run and still are on that good run even though obviously St James's Park wasn't our best day last week.

23:43It's interesting isn't it there's a paradox there in a way because what you've described there is this amazing human connection with the fans and yet these models that we talk about are so often kind of abstract and and it's that your recruitment is very data driven and it's about getting people who you know the stats fit the model but there is there's a human side to everything so in terms of player recruitment um you've obviously got a very clever system there that is is producing the goods how much of that is also the human side of the player you're bringing in because they also know that there's a there's a kind of quid pro quo here isn't there you know things could go really well for you and you'll be going to one of the the bigger clubs you'll be sold on yeah definitely and data-driven recruitment is is how we work and and you know to some extent Brentford have a similar model and Bournemouth and one or two other clubs but but we are in a people business and the right characters are just as important as the right technical players or tactical players or athletic players so we put a lot of work into the numbers for sure but we also put a lot of work into understanding the people that we're bringing in.

24:51And there's not any value to us in bringing in a great player if he's a bad character, because all we're doing is giving Fabian and the other players actually a problem. So we try and do as much work as we can on the objective side of recruitment, which is really numbers-based, but just as much hard work on the subjective side, which is very much character-based. And is that done the old-fashioned way, picking the phone up and saying, is he a dick? It is. It is actually, Gabby. That's one way of putting it. um and and we have no dick policy so um so so from that point of view yeah talking to coaches talking to former teammates talking to media talking to sponsors talking to people that will know the person behind the name and behind the athlete is just as important to us and and of course the challenge with that is always that it is subjective by definition so we're having to try and get as many opinions as we can to build as bigger and clearer picture as we can and of course you know you hope you're getting it right and and what you can't ever judge fully is the dynamic that is then created by bringing someone new into an established dressing room um and therefore the mix of those characters he might be a good guy but doesn't gel necessarily with the other good guys that are in there but we we're lucky we get more right than wrong um and you know we're very lucky at the moment we've got a fantastic group of people i mean the danny welbeck's the james milner's pascal grosses lewis dunks um jason steels these are incredibly experienced professional footballers who also are great characters and they've done a brilliant job in in making sure the younger players that we brought in from all over the world have felt part of the the setup and have made them feel as welcome as possible as quickly as possible where then where then do you sort of or how do you feel when you see people move on and then they struggle out of the Brighton system because I think it's also, you know, you worked at Spurs for years and we saw it with Thomas Frank coming out of the Brentford system and going to Spurs.

26:52I'm fascinated where Andoni Irola goes next and how he will be out of the Bournemouth system. Graham Potter had it when he left your system and went to Chelsea. When you see people move, Do you do it with a sense of worry for them alongside the pride? How do you see it? Well, apart from when they're playing us, we always want them to do well. And, you know, we do. We form good bonds with the people that work with us. And I think that's partly our club culture. But I think one of the things that fans often don't fully appreciate, and there's no reason why they should because they're not directly involved, but every club has its own culture.

27:33Every club is different. the environment is different you know we all play in the premier league we we all have stadiums training grounds coaches staff members but but actually the the culture of the club the way we operate day to day is very very different um and sometimes people that fit our culture don't necessarily fit as well with other cultures and it's no different to moving from the bbc to itv you know there will be a different and distinctive culture i would imagine between those two two broadcasters um but but yeah we you know there's very very few people that have left brighton that we've you know we've wished any sort of bad will on you know we want them to do well and you know even the lads that went to chelsea always joke you know publicly about chelsea being my best customer um in many ways and they are but but we don't wish you know marco carella or moises casado or gil pedro or graham potter when he went there you know any ill will we want them to do well and it's good for our club if they do because it shows that our initial recruitment our development of those people our support of those people has proved to be valuable for them as well one of your former managers is now at your boyhood club and used to work there of course spurs roberto deserve it did he call you at all um about the culture of spurs i know it's a long time since you've been there yeah we've spoken we've spoken a few times actually and including on the day of the game we played them uh a couple of weeks ago and and you know roberto and i talked about Tottenham when we worked together at Brighton because I think again it was one of the clubs when he was growing up that he looked to for the flair and the game is about the glory, the Bill Nicholson sort of way and so he was very aware I know going into Tottenham not only what he was going into in terms of the size of the club but also the expectations of the fans, not just for staying in the Premier League because obviously that's his number one priority but the way they play and what the fans expect there so yeah I think he's a good fit actually I mean Roberto is a fantastic coach a really good person an intense character and I think the fans there will really respond to his way of coaching the team from from the technical area and there will be times I'm sure as he as with us that Roberto will leave his technical area to make his feelings known up and down the touchline and that's him and that's part of the fun and character that he is but I know in the next couple of games three games he's got a big job to do there.

29:53Given all of your connections as Gabby said can you believe the mess they've got themselves into? It's difficult Mark because you know I first went to Tottenham in 1975 as a small boy with my dad it's a club that I you know have been close to all of my life and apart from the the two games each season that we typically face Tottenham you know I want them to do well so to see them where they are has been really hard and uh most of my friends most of my family are tottenham fans um and you know it's been a real struggle to see them in that in that position but i also know in football clubs how a series of of decisions that go the wrong way can very very quickly lead to a problem like the one they've got and you know but for the grace of go go all of us and i would never judge anyone there for for making those decisions because we all face in football hundreds of decisions a week um and did that start with daniel leave it going paul certainly during my time there daniel was an incredible force for good um and a great chairman a fantastic boss for me i learned a lot from daniel i think as always you know the one thing that that daniel never wanted to do and and it was not as comfortable doing as others is is being a front person being the public face and engaging as much as maybe others do whether that was right or wrong at the time I think I think it probably made it more difficult for fans to understand fully what he'd achieved there and you know I think his his sort of legacy at Tottenham and and the way people look on his time there will be seen more fondly in the future than perhaps it is right now and you know they've got a world-class stadium a world-class training facility they've got an incredible fan base and a great brand so I'm sure they'll come again just going back to your current manager, Fabian Hertzler.

31:43So young, still so young. I mean, you know, he's always going to be young to me and to Chavez, can I just add as well? Harsh, but fair. Unnecessary, but accurate. And I imagine that his age and lack of, you know, just by the fact he was so young, his lack of experience was a question mark when you were considering bringing him in. He's proven, as you've just alluded to there, to be a great communicator, clearly knows how to connect with the fans, seems like a great fit with the area, you know, and I think that was really important to you as well, wasn't it? That he got that kind of geographical difference.

32:21It's a bit different, Brighton, isn't it? Because it's a bit further away from places, the city itself. And this week, of course, it's paper talk at the moment that he has signed a new contract. So can you tell us anything that confirms that? I would say the ink is just about drying on that new contract. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. We're delighted that Fabian's agreed to stay for three more years. And we're looking forward to working with him over that time. When we first met him, actually in my living room a couple of summers ago, Tony and I met him for the first time. And obviously, the chairman was particularly concerned about his age.

32:57Not the quality, not the way he conducted himself in his previous job. But Premier League manager at 31 was going to be quite a story. and we wanted to try and cover that point as quickly as possible in in the meeting and um we were thinking about how we could do that without actually just coming out and saying look you're 31 tell us why we should hire you and fabian actually anticipated i think very well what we were concerned about he said look he said i know you're probably concerned about my age he said but i can't change what's on my birth certificate he said and if i was a coach who had eight years experience having finished playing at the typical age of 35 therefore I would be 43 you wouldn't be concerned well I've had the same eight years experience coaching even though I finished playing at 23 he said anyway so I don't think you should be concerned so I've got a couple of guys I want to bring with me they're very very good guys they keep me grounded um and they're both 28 and we knew then that we had not only someone who was smart because i think he'd anticipated the uh the issue that we we were facing or at least a concern but he had a great sense of humor and of course it didn't really hit us until after he'd left we spoke for three hours four hours that day and it didn't really sort of hit us until after he'd left my house that he was actually doing all of that in a second language you know this this was a humor and and clever humor as well and a young guy who was clearly very very much in uh in charge of of of his own sort of career he planned it um he was keen to get to the premier league but gave no indication that he was going to sign for us at any cost it was it was really really measured um and we thought yeah and so there was never any kind of reticence or any any feeling within the playing group that that okay we've got this guy coming in here who for quite a few of us he's going to be i mean james milner for one he's going to be a good few years younger than us i know you've got a as mark alluded to early you've got a wide range of ages there did did any of them express any not to me i'm sure like most dressing rooms there would have been the first thing when a new coach is appointed as if you don't know him you google you know wow this guy is going to be 31 um but no there was no negativity that that came back our way i think there was a you know a lot of interest in how he was going to be how he's going to conduct himself you know was he going to be sort of one of us or was he going to be a little bit separate and i think you know he would be the first to say that he's still learning on the job there's still a degree of of knowledge that he wants to acquire and frankly as he said he can't change what's on his birth certificate he can't speed up the years all he can do is absorb you know the experiences that he's having he's also a great one for for looking at other sports and other coaches in other sports and trying to learn um so last summer he took himself off to the u.s during the summer went to look at nba teams nfl teams how they train how they prepare how they recover talk to their coaches their players look at their facilities Fabian and I went over to McLaren a few months ago to look at what they do just after they've won the Constructors' Championship and the Drivers' Championship so that was a fantastic experience for us both to see behind the scenes there and we've maintained that relationship so yeah, he's won for education and learning and so he's staying Just to expand it out then a little bit we mentioned Hearts and so Tony Bloom has an investment in Hearts and Union Saint-Gilois in Belgium as well.

36:42Are you a multi-club ownership or is it just investment? So you don't operate as a sort of group? No, we don't. I mean, Tony's got effectively four football investments, Brighton, Hearts, Royal Union and Melbourne Victory in the A-League in Australia. And really the only consistent person in all of those four is Tony. but in terms of his stakes outside of Brighton they're all minority stakes so he has no direct control in the running of the club and the only board that I sit on out of those four clubs other than Brighton is Melbourne and that's because it's outside of UEFA's jurisdiction and therefore I can do that without any issues but no, we run them as four separate clubs and they all have their own boards their own management teams their own chairs, their own chief executives and obviously their own squads and coaches And occasionally there might be some crossover in terms of loans or transfers, but all of that has to be at fair market value.

37:44All of that has to be entirely transparent with the football authorities. The Harps story is phenomenal, isn't it? It could be even better in the next couple of weeks. It could be. I mean, he had a sensational maroon suit on Monday for the win over Rangers. Only he could carry that off, Mark. I definitely could. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. But him and Willy Wonka, actually, it was a very that was the colour of it. But this is, I mean, what they have done is and that's also through the use of the analytics, isn't it? It is. And, you know, that's where I think Tony is kind of really keen to prove the model that actually you can use data to improve different teams in different leagues in different countries quite substantially.

38:30I mean, in some ways, the Royal Union story in Belgium is even more significant, more dramatic, because not only has had incredible success there and for that club for the first time in 100 years, but it's sustained. You know, they've actually now become one of the clubs in Belgium that everyone looks to for European qualification every season. And I think the likes of sort of the Anderleks and the Bruges, the bigger clubs in Belgium, are quite shocked at the sudden re-emergence of Royal Union. But yeah, the data model works, but it's constantly being refined. That's the other thing I would say is that, you know, we don't stand on our laurels when it comes to the data.

39:07we're constantly looking to make it as good as it can be and better because other clubs are using similar models and there are successful examples amongst the bigger clubs Liverpool for example Do you use the same model with the women's team? and again that's another really exciting development for us and our women's team has had a good season we've got an FA Cup semi-final on Sunday we had a great result last night against Arsenal really good performance again and yes the data has helped us find some of the players that are now currently playing in in the women's team as well albeit the pool of players gabby as you know is much smaller what prompted the decision to to build the new purpose-built stadium then for for the women's team because that's a it's a big i suppose it's a big debating point at the moment is is the venues that women's teams use and how financially viable some of those are on a weekly basis when you look commercially at what comes in on those match days as well so what what prompted your decision well first of every every club is different they you know we're very different for example to arsenal and their women's team in terms of fan base and the the amount of time arsenal have been you know promoting and working with the women's game but in our case it was really need and desire need because at the moment we play at Crawley it's a it's a men's team it's a stadium designed for men's football we're the the tenant we're not the landlord so our women's team are always sort of second choice when it comes to scheduling which is understandable because it's Crawley's stadium it's a red stadium we're a blue club it's way outside of Brighton our fans don't like traveling you know to home games outside their city we had that as you know with our men's team many years ago going to so it's a little bit of a raw nerve that we touch every time that we we do that um and the desire part of it was really because we genuinely want to respect our women's team and our female athletes and we feel that a purpose-built stadium designed for uh female athletes and a very different audience through looked at and designed through the lens of women and girls uh is the right thing to do to drive performance very few in the world yes that have been built just for the women's team well this will be the first in europe and by the time it's built it will be the third in the world and and you know we're talking about everything really from the surface of the pitch which we believe may at the moment be contributing to some of the injuries in the women's game that are more unexplained than than not uh the design of the dressing rooms because you know the dressing rooms at the amex as great a stadium as it is a design for male athletes you know we have open showers not cubicles we have too few cubicle toilets and you know urinals so every time our women's team go in there as delighted as they are to be playing in a lovely stadium it's not designed for them and it immediately strikes them as not being designed for them and then even on the concourses you know we sell thousands and thousands of pints of beer and giant meat pies at our men's games last night at our women's game i'm wandering around i don't see too many people drinking lots and lots of pints of beer or eating giant meat pies.