Brighton & Hove Albion signed Moises Caicedo from under the nose of Manchester United for £4million ($5m) in the January 2021 transfer window, then rejected an offer of £70million two years later from Arsenal for the Ecuador midfielder.
It is one example of how United’s FA Cup semi-final opponents at Wembley on Sunday are making other clubs sit up and take notice of their successes in scouting and player recruitment.
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A source at one big club, granted anonymity with others The Athletic has spoken to in order to protect relationships, says: “We regard Brighton as our biggest rivals in certain markets.”
Caicedo was purchased from Independiente del Valle in his homeland. Two years earlier, Brighton bought Alexis Mac Allister, now a World Cup winner with Argentina, from Argentinos Juniors for £8million.

Kaoru Mitoma, the Japan left-winger with seven goals and four assists in 24 appearances in his first season in the Premier League, arrived from Kawasaki Frontale in the J1 League for £3million in August 2021.
Striker Evan Ferguson, 18 years old and a senior Republic of Ireland international, has exploded onto the scene this season, attracting the attention of Manchester United.
Brighton signed Ferguson — ruled out of Sunday’s semi-final by an ankle injury sustained in Saturday’s 2-1 win away to Chelsea — for the academy from Bohemians in January 2021 before nurturing him in the under-21s.
What a finish from @Evan_Ferguson9 last night! 🤤✨ @BrightonTools 📺 pic.twitter.com/voqmXVXu77
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) April 5, 2023
The club will make huge profits when Ferguson, Caicedo, Mac Allister and Mitoma are sold.
The way Brighton operate is making a big impression on recruitment specialists, executives, managers and agents throughout the football industry. So, how do they do it and is their model sustainable?
The starting point for Brighton’s ability to source low-cost gems is the worldwide data on players of owner-chairman Tony Bloom, which nobody else can replicate.
The 53-year-old sports betting entrepreneur has his own software that filters the whole market. The algorithm is a secret, kept even from those inside the club.
Brighton are a client of Bloom’s company, Starlizard, buying in the data that supports the recruitment programme.
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Scouts are sent a list of names to watch and compile reports on players who have passed the data tick list, based on factors such as age and match minutes.
A traffic light system is used for reports. Green means a great fit, amber is for players close to fitting the criteria, and red is for monitoring.

Gareth Jennings, formerly head of technical development at FIFA following spells as academy director at Leicester City and Stoke City, says: “There are three levels for the recruitment of players: recruiting players for the now, recruiting for now and for the future, then just for the future.
“They don’t really touch the players for the now scenario. Look at the signings in January – (Facundo) Buonanotte from Rosario Central for £6million for an 18-year-old (Argentinian) with huge potential.
“He’s got that capability to be in and around the squad now, but he’s one for the future. Yasin Asari (19) from Sweden for £4million; again, huge potential.
“They’ve got this really good balance in terms of understanding the type of players they want to bring in that fit into the way they play.”
It is not just about having data, but how best to use it to help identify players that will be a good fit for the club.
Brighton were among the first clubs to scout players by position rather than region. They appointed John Doolan as centre-forward scouting manager last month after a decade at Everton.
Les Reed, formerly the FA’s technical director and vice-chairman of Southampton, says: “There are certain areas — strikers are one of them — where there is a distinct benefit in having someone with experience who has been a prolific goalscorer or has studied it; that attention to detail is really important.”
Brighton cannot compete with the wealthiest clubs on fees and wages. The most they have paid for a player still stands at £20million for central defender Adam Webster from Championship side Bristol City in August 2019.
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Brentford are the only Premier League rival with a lower wage bill. Hence, Brighton are often fishing in pools for players where they can gain an advantage.
A source at a big club says: “I wouldn’t describe what they’re doing as revolutionary, but they’re attacking new, emerging markets.
“We know the players before they sign them but they are in a position where they can offer a gradual integration into the Premier League, whereas at the bigger clubs, players need to be able to hit the ground running and perform at an elite level straightaway.”
Brighton can point to examples abroad and closer to home with players such as Ferguson — who was wanted by Liverpool — of a clearly identifiable route to career progression.
Jennings, who was recently appointed technical director of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Pro League, says: “The bit that’s really good in terms of bringing young players into the system and developing them is that you don’t have to create a story at Brighton because they are living the strategy.
“They are showing there’s either a pathway to the first team and you’ll play regularly in the Premier League, or we might be a stepping stone, the opportunity for you to go and play on the really big stage at a top European club or a top UK club.
“I work with quite a lot of clubs globally in an advisory capacity. A lot of them have got it documented in shiny brochures saying this is the way we play, this is our identity.
“A lot of clubs in panic moments, when the team isn’t doing so well, go and buy the players for now, perhaps rush into it and pay over the odds. That then upsets the balance, so the story you’ve been telling the young players is disrupted.
“Brighton have just been really clear, really consistent in how they’ve worked. You’ve got to be constantly assessing your squad and the wider squad, players coming through.
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“The continuous work by all of the high-performance staff at Brighton must be very good.”
Reaching the top flight in England in 2017 and developing their model has given Brighton an advantage over clubs in other top leagues, for example, La Liga in Spain.
According to an agent at one of the big Spanish agencies, they have overtaken clubs such as Sevilla and Valencia for young players with potential as a springboard.
This is especially true of South American players, who see Brighton as an environment where they can grow before moving on. They can offer salaries three times as much as La Liga clubs can afford, apart from Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
This is highlighted by Ecuador international left-back Pervis Estupinan joining Brighton last summer for £15million from Villarreal.
Estupinan has been an outstanding replacement for Marc Cucurella, signed by Chelsea in August for a fee which could rise to £63million with add-ons after one impressive season at the Amex.

Reed says: “I would like to have thought back in the day Southampton were the model, but Brighton are now.
“They stand out as the club that really has benefited from investing in not just recruitment, but in a system of recruitment for a club of their size that enables them to punch above their weight and achieve what they are now.”
Marrying data with more traditional methods of scouts on the ground with an eye for a player is a balancing act for all clubs.
A source at one rival says of Brighton: “They have a strong physical presence in the market, as well as data. The whole data thing is exaggerated. I don’t know any club that uses data over scouts.
“It’s there to complement the work the scouts do and basically point them in a direction of player they are looking for.”
Head coach Roberto De Zerbi is gradually getting accustomed to Brighton’s way of doing things.
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The Italian had his own man in place as the assistant head of recruitment, Salvatore Monaco, a former central defender with multiple clubs in De Zerbi’s homeland. They worked together at Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine.
Brighton chief executive Paul Barber, responsible for the running of the club on Bloom’s behalf, said: “We’ve got a different process to a lot of clubs, we don’t charge around the world, constantly watching matches looking at players, which is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
“We focus on the areas for improvement, focus on the players that we feel can fill that gap and then send our eyes-on scouts to look specifically at those players.”
January was De Zerbi’s first experience of the way Brighton operate during a transfer window, which is different from the summer window when they prefer to do most of their business.
“I’m getting used to working with algorithms in another way in the transfer market and I’m getting used to appreciating this way,” De Zerbi said.
“I didn’t know it before. I spent a lot of time studying new players on video, but now I understand there is another way to find players.
“At Sassuolo (in Serie A) and Shakhtar, it was totally different. I had one of my team who gave me a player’s name and I studied the players, but without numbers, without data, only on video.”
Brighton’s model is designed with sustainability in mind and succession planning is in place when members of staff move on.
It has enabled the club to keep progressing despite a high churn of key staff and players, most notably with the appointment of De Zerbi in September when Graham Potter left for Chelsea.
It also applies to the recruitment arm. Rewinding to the January 2022 transfer window, Dan Ashworth was technical director, with Paul Winstanley as head of recruitment.
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Ashworth resigned the following month to make a protracted move to Newcastle United. David Weir had been promoted from loans manager to become Ashworth’s assistant. The former Glasgow Rangers, Everton and Scotland international defender then took over as technical director.
The scenario was similar when Winstanley departed in November to link up with Potter again at Chelsea as co-sporting director.
Sam Jewell has stepped into the role of head of recruitment at the age of 33, after working his way up over the past seven years from under-21s recruitment manager and emerging talent scouting manager.
He played a significant part in the signings of Caicedo, Mac Allister, Buonanotte and Paraguay prospect Julio Enciso, learning Spanish during the COVID-19 lockdown to improve his communication skills in South America.
Welcoming back our World Cup winner! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/Bb2MoZmf2B
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) January 2, 2023
Nottingham Forest, impressed by Brighton’s model, were keen on signing young players with high resale potential earlier in the season when Dane Murphy was chief executive and George Syrianos was the head of recruitment.
Once they departed, so did that thought process.
Brighton’s model has been developed gradually over time by Bloom and Barber.
Premier League survival was the aim for the first two seasons following promotion from the Championship under Chris Hughton in 2017. That ended 34 years out of the top flight, dating back to the 1983 FA Cup final defeat by Manchester United after a replay, which was accompanied by relegation.
The new vision when Hughton was sacked and replaced by Potter was to establish Brighton as a top-10 club. That meant not only a more refined style of play, but building a younger squad.
David Moyes, the West Ham and former Manchester United manager, says: “We’ve all been impressed with Brighton over many years because of their build, their model.
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“There are models throughout Europe which are interesting and exciting to look at. I always talk about the Red Bull model and how well they’ve done with their clubs. I don’t know how many years they’ve been at it, maybe 10 years now; Brighton, you see the players they’ve bought in are younger.
“They’ve been able to go out and buy young players who are maybe not ready, give them a few years before they put them in the team and they’ve got so many good young players coming through now.”
They are reaping the benefits now of gradual growth that goes back to 2011 when they were crowned League One champions at Withdean Stadium — a converted athletics track — before moving into the newly built Amex Stadium.
Reed says: “It’s been a long time in the making. Ever since they built the Amex and plotted their way into the Premier League, it’s always been on the agenda.
“A lot of that is to do with the fact Tony’s company has the advantage of an incredibly well-established player database and that they’ve been able to flex that in order to support their recruitment.
“This isn’t the result of a little bit of good recruitment over a couple of transfer windows. This has been in the offing for some time. They are really good at it, well structured and well organised.
“It works internally really well, from the chairman, chief executive through to David Weir and their recruitment department, supported with the technology but really good networking and good eyes on scouting. It’s just a really good model.”
The coherent structure at Brighton is epitomised by the talent pool in the goalkeeping department.
Robert Sanchez regained his Premier League place away at Chelsea in the absence of injured 32-year-old Jason Steele, who has been preferred recently by De Zerbi because of his passing out from the back and his decision-making in that process.
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Sanchez, 25, is a regular member of the Spain squad and is still hugely gifted with a big future.
England under-21 Carl Rushworth is gaining valuable experience on loan at League One side Lincoln City this season, which follows a similar spell with Walsall in League Two last season, where Manchester United were monitoring him.

Rushworth is replicating the pathway to the first team of Sanchez — he was loaned out to Forest Green Rovers in League Two and Rochdale in League One before Potter fast-tracked him to the No 1 spot at the expense of Maty Ryan in 2020-21.
Brighton also have England under-19s goalkeeper James Beadle, who is on loan to Crewe Alexandra in League Two.
Rio Ferdinand, who won the Premier League with Manchester United six times, has put his trust in Brighton’s development of goalkeepers.
Lorenz Ferdinand, the former England central defender’s 16-year-old son, plays for the under-18s.
An agent tells The Athletic: “Without it being rocket science, they’re very good in how they build their goalkeepers. They’ve got a specific style to make them very proactive and it’s the expertise they have within the environment.
“They treat it very much like a breeding ground and they like the idea of producing their own, whereas some of the bigger clubs will give huge salaries to younger goalkeepers.”
Losing the long-serving and highly regarded Ben Roberts — when the goalkeeping coach left with Potter and other members of the backroom team to join Chelsea in September — has been absorbed.
Roberts’ Spanish replacement, 53-year-old Ricard Segarra, co-ordinated the youth coaches at Barcelona before a spell with Turkish giants Galatasaray.
Assistant goalkeeper coach Jack Stern joined in January 2022 after working in the MLS at FC Cincinnati.
On Brighton’s goalkeeping setup, the agent we spoke to said: “They’re up there with the best in the world. They’ve just got a really clear strategy, so many good people that work there.”
Brighton have learnt a few lessons along the way in the hazardous world of scouting and player recruitment.
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It is not an exact science. No amount of data and due diligence can cater for a wide range of uncontrollable factors such as fluctuations in form, injuries or whether a player and/or his family settle into a new environment, especially from abroad.
Mistakes happen. A total of £30million was spent on Dutch forward Jurgen Locadia from PSV Eindhoven in January 2018 and another player from Eredivisie, Iran winger Alireza Jahanbakhsh, from AZ Alkmaar in July 2018.
Neither of those deals worked out. Jahanbakhsh has rediscovered his form since returning to the Netherlands in July 2021 at Feyenoord.
Locadia recently joined Cangzhou Mighty Lions in the Chinese Super League following spells in Germany at Hoffenheim and Bochum, divided by a stint in the US with FC Cincinnati.
A source at one big club says: “As with all team’s recruitment, there are a fair few that haven’t worked out, but they are very respected in the market now.”
The Locadia and Jahanbakhsh signings pre-dated the arrival of Ashworth in 2019 as the first technical director. His main area of expertise was establishing a clear pathway for prospects such as Ferguson.
Ashworth had been the FA’s director of elite development for six years when Brighton hired him and he is essentially replicating the Brighton model at Newcastle, with a few tweaks.
They are recruiting for scouts across Europe and various South American countries, together with a root and branch overhaul of youth recruitment, bringing in specialists for different regions domestically and abroad.
Their wealthy Saudi Arabian backing will be exploited not primarily for ready-made, expensive Premier League signings, but for young players they can develop.
Ashworth’s rebuilding project at Newcastle includes a new state-of-the-art training facility at an upgraded site at Benton, which will house the men, women and the academy — much like Brighton’s high-class complex at Lancing.
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Newcastle admire how Brighton have identified head coaches in Potter and now De Zerbi who fit the model, capable of extracting maximum development from players in the way Eddie Howe is at St James’ Park.
The unique advantage for Brighton is the data and acumen of Bloom. A Premier League club scout says: “I’m sure there are many elements towards the success they are having, but I would say fundamentally they are organised and willing to take educated gambles when it comes to signing players.”
How long can Brighton keep losing their best players and keep progressing?
One or both of Mac Allister and Caicedo could move to a bigger club in the summer.
Jennings says: “I get the fear, but they have built up trust and a global reach with the football workforce.
“Players and agents are really clever. A lot of people from the outside looking in will think they’ll just take the best contracts, but agencies are a lot smarter than that. They think about long-term investments and where opportunities lie for players.
“Brighton are an attractive proposition. If players move onto bigger and better clubs, although it’s a hit for the system on one front, it’s actually a huge investment on another.
“There’s then a desire from the next players that jump into those roles to think ‘I want to go to Manchester City, Real Madrid or Barcelona. Brighton are going to give me that opportunity’.
“That model of losing players for huge money to maintain sustainability at the club actually contributes to how great the model is. They’re growing their product.”

Brighton often plan at least one or two transfer windows ahead in lining up players they are targeting to develop into the first team. Simon Adingra was bought last summer for £6million from Danish side Nordsjaelland and loaned straight to Belgium club Union Saint-Gilloise, where Bloom is the co-owner.
A goal in Saturday’s 2-1 home win against Seraing increased the 21-year-old Ivory Coast winger’s tally to 13 goals and 13 assists in 43 appearances. He is following the same route as Mitoma, who spent last season on loan to Union.
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Jennings says: “If we look at artificial intelligence predictability, we’ve now got data from outside of our own clubs that we could then predict the data if they came into our model.
“So, with this global reach they have now, they will be looking in other markets and understanding that if we lose that player, what player will give us the same data returns? They will have a really clear understanding of that.
“Their ability to assess squad need has been top level. If you look at (Champions League) clubs like Benfica or (Borussia) Dortmund and see the level of player that has come out of their models that you’d think would hugely impact how successful they are, there’s been very little impact because that assessment has been so good.”
At Chelsea, the winning goal was struck from 30 yards by 19-year-old Enciso, who is yet to start in the Premier League. Brighton’s ability to unearth gems shows no signs of grinding to a halt.
Simply STUNNING! 🚀 @BrightonTools 📺 pic.twitter.com/R6kh9LLm5z
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) April 15, 2023
Reed says: “I find myself thinking ‘what happens when Mac Allister goes?’ But they’ll have someone lined up ready to come in, won’t they!
“If you look at the Brighton squad and the spread of nationalities and ages, that tells you they’re going to be ready. If they weren’t geared up to be able to recruit very successfully as a part of a succession plan, they wouldn’t have that squad as it is at the moment.
“What you’ll find now is that people will look at Estupinan, Caicedo and (Jeremy) Sarmiento and all of a sudden there will be a load of new scouts going to Ecuador.
“There will be a gold rush to Ecuador and people will forget there might also be players in Bolivia and Peru.”
Where Brighton probably will be already? “Exactly,” Reed says.
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Additional contributors: Stuart James, Adam Leventhal, Oliver Kay, Danny Taylor, Dermot Corrigan
(Top photo: iStock, Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images, Mike Hewitt/Getty Images; Design: Sam Richardson)
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