Brighton chairman Tony Bloom wants Albion to be top 10 Premier League club
Last updated on .From the section Brighton
Brighton chairman Tony Bloom wants to make the Seagulls a top 10 Premier League club after signing a multi-year deal with sponsors American Express.
The 12-year £100m deal includes naming rights of the stadium and training ground, as well as shirt sponsorship.
Brighton finished 17th last season, two points above the relegation zone.
Speaking to BBC Sussex, Bloom said: "Staying in the Premier League isn't enough. What we want to do is to be a top 10 Premier League club."
"We had a vision when I took over that we wanted to get to the Premier League, build the Amex, extend it to over 30,000, and also build the training ground and academy. We've achieved that and we're delighted to have done that."
Speaking alongside Bloom at BBC Sussex's fan forum, chief executive Paul Barber said a top 10 finish was "a really stretching target" but pointed towards the growth of the club over the past 10 years.
"The infrastructure of this stadium, training ground, the investment in quality people like [manager] Graham Potter and [technical director] Dan Ashworth is very important to that vision," he said.
"Equally important is the ability to finance it and to sign a long-term agreement with a brand, a company the size of American Express is fantastic."
Potter replaced former boss Chris Hughton in the summer as Brighton embark on their third successive season in the Premier League, with the club breaking their transfer record to sign centre-back Adam Webster from Bristol City for £20m.
The Seagulls also brought in striker Neal Maupay from Brentford, with football finance expert and lecturer at the University of Liverpool Kieran Maguire saying their deal with financial corporation has bolstered their financial status in the league.
Maguire told BBC Sussex: "It catapults them, they were effectively sort of in the bottom two or three of sponsorship deals in the Premier League, but Amex must be very pleased with what's happened.
"They're now in the top 10 shirt sponsorship and club sponsorship deals in the league, which is a hell of an achievement, and you have got to give a lot of credit to the Albion team who've negotiated this arrangement."
