Brighton confirm Chelsea paid world record fee to sign Graham Potter and coaching staff

Brighton & Hove Albion released their 2021-22 financial accounts this week, and while they largely concern things that happened in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022, they did include a note to confirm the fee that they collected from Chelsea not long after, in mid-September, for Graham Potter’s services.

In the section titled “Post balance sheet events”, Brighton confirm that they received a sum of £21.5m in the deal that saw Graham Potter and his coaching and backroom staff join Chelsea.

This matches reporting at the time, which also pegged the £20m+, of which £16m was reportedly for Potter alone, as a world record transfer fee for a football coach. (Transfer fees are not quite as common for coaches as for players of course, and most coaches join new teams as de facto free agents.)

The £20m is still small potatoes compared to the investment Todd Boehly & Co have been willing to make in the playing staff (not to mention the stadium coming up), but it does underline just how much they believe in their chosen man (and how willing they may be to wait patiently for him to come good).