In less than a decade, Brighton & Hove Albion -- currently a League Championship club -- has "evolved from a mid table League One side" to a "Premier League club in waiting," according to Joe Hall of CITY A.M. Brighton is "near certain" to at least make the playoffs again this year. Club CEO Paul Barber "lifted the lid on how the club has re-established itself both in the city and in the upper echelons of the Championship." He said of the stadium atmosphere, "You don't want it to be too sterile. We always say to parents that complain occasionally about language that this is football, not the opera." Of building a global fanbase, he said, "We need to catch the hearts and minds of Sussex before we take over the world. ... For now our biggest priority is getting ourselves to be the biggest club in Sussex and the South of England." When asked about the "new generation" of fans, Barber said, "Back in 2010 we had an average crowd of about 7,000 and part of the problem we had was a lost generation of supporters from the wilderness years when Brighton didn't have a home. Those supporters started a program over a decade ago to capture the hearts and minds of youngsters in the city. One of the things that we do is on every seven-year-old's birthday, if you're registered with us and you live in Brighton & Hove, you get a free replica shirt. Now when you look around the parks and the seafront in Brighton, instead of seeing Spurs, Arsenal and Manchester United shirts, you see Brighton shirts." He said of the rise of the Chinese Super League, "The problem with any kind of emerging league is for the first two or three seasons it's a little bit like lightning in a bottle. It's exciting but it's very contained. I think the best leagues in the world have learned that you've got to have a pyramid of some kind below that top level." Regarding foreign owners of English clubs, Barber said, "Foreign ownership is not necessarily a bad thing -- look at Liverpool and Manchester City. My concern is with those foreign owners that have got a different agenda and perhaps not the same ambition for their club or the same feel for our game" (CITY A.M., 3/4).
