Chief executive Phil Barber has said that Brighton have already received ‘significant interest’ in our vacant head coach position from a number of ‘potentially high quality candidates.’
A statement released on the Official Site by Barber explained that most of yesterday was spent dealing with the departure of Oscar Garcia following his tendering of his resignation and the clubs ultimate acceptance of that, and obviously as that news was spread throughout the press, the club already started receiving enquiries about the position.
‘We can’t divulge any names, and we won’t comment on media speculation, but at this stage what I can say is that we have been contacted by some very high calibre managers and coaches who want to work for Brighton. It’s certainly a good indication of just how far our club has come in a very short period of time.’
Barber also confirmed that unlike Oscar’s head coach title, our recruitment will be with the title of ‘first team manager.’ Garcia was handed the job as a manager because he had the same role and responsibilities of the previous manager, but Oscar preferred the head coach title.
‘The new position will also be the same role and have the same responsibilities as Oscar but, to avoid any ambiguity, we will revert to the title of manager.’
Our Chief Executive says that fans can expect to hear directly from Chairman Tony Bloom before the end of the week, but obviously the immediate focus for the club and the board is on building a suitable short list of managers now and also dealing with the necessary end of season retained list and other such things.
Prior to the short list being built and those on it being invited for interviews, Barber adds that we aren’t putting a deadline or a time scale on these decisions and how long they will take as the focus has to be on getting the appointment right to we can continue to kick on, and that is more important that making a decision quickly.
‘Meanwhile, it’s very much business as usual elsewhere in the club. We have to give the Football League our retained list and first we will inform those players whose contracts are up at the end of June of our decision as to whether they will be offered a new contract.’
Saying that work in that direction has already begun and David Burke and Nathan Jones are already having conversations with the players, ahead of us then informing the fans of the decisions taken.
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