The benefits of a strategic partnership between Brighton and Hibernian

Brighton & Hove Albion have announced their first strategic partnership with a fellow British club after formalising ties with Scottish outfit Hibernian.

The Seagulls and Hibs will be working closely in a number of areas which they hope can be mutually beneficial. Whilst it is not unusual for Premier League sides to partner with foreign clubs – Vitesse Arnhem frequently receive some of Chelsea’s one billion academy products on loan and Watford and Udinese have transferred over 50 individuals between themselves in the past decade – links between England and Scotland are less common.

Brighton of course have their own partnership with a European outfit… kind of. As well as the Albion, Tony Bloom also owns Belgian club Union Saint-Gilloise.

Although no formal link between Brighton and Union SG exists, several Seagulls have already spent time in Brussels since Bloom acquired the Union in 2018, including Percy Tau and Alex Cochrane. 2016-17 promotion winner Sebastien Pocognoli also ended his career with Union four years after he had turned out for the Albion.

Prior to that, John Byrne helped forge a partnership between 2005 and 2008 involving Brighton and French side Le Havre, whom the striker had both played for during his career.

The Albion picked up a couple of players from the deal; Alexis Bertin impressed during the second half of the 2016-17 season whilst David Martot made less of an impression in the 2007-08.

There was also a friendly the other side of the English channel, providing an away day which has entered into Albion folklore. If you think that a trip to Burnley on the train can end in a messy experience, imagine what an overnight ferry to France will do to the mind.

But what of this new partnership between Brighton and Hibernian? We take a look at what some of the benefits might be from linking up with a team north of the border.

Player exchanges
When the announcement was made, Brighton technical director Dan Ashworth and his Hibs counterpart Graeme Mathie focused largely on the player development side of things.

We all know that the Albion have a lot of talent in their development squad ranks with a clear pathway set out for preparing players for Premier League. Call it the Ben White route – a series of loans working through different levels of the game before hopefully breaking into the Albion first team.

A partnership with Hibernian gives Brighton a club to whom they can send young players to pick up valuable first team experience – including in Europe.

Hibs will play some form of continental football next season, either in the Europa League if they beat St Johnstone in the Scottish Cup Final or the new Europa League Conference should they lose to the Saints via finishing third in the SPL.

The likes of Jayson Molumby and Aaron Connolly could head to Easter Road for a year of first team football to rediscover their form and confidence after a difficult season for both Irishmen, presuming of course Connolly does not stumble over the Edinburgh version of Shoosh or keep breaking lockdown laws to bonk women.

It is harder to see any Hibs players coming the other way to Brighton because of the gap in class between the Premier League and the SPL.

You only have to look at how Connor Goldson and Leon Balogun – two fringe players in weaker squads than that which the Albion currently possess – have become the bedrock of unbeaten Scottish champions Glasgow Rangers.

Brighton do not have a great recent experience of signing players from north of the border. Steve Thomson left after a year and Graeme Smith was an unmitigated disaster in the three months he lasted in the Brighton goal.

The rollcall of individuals to have played for both clubs does not make for great reading either, Smith being a notable name on that list too alongside German pornstar Dirk Lehmann.

Brexit means Brexit
Tying in to player development, the partnership between Brighton and Hibernian allows the Albion to send players on loan outside of England without having to battle through a clusterfuck of red tape caused by Brexit.

Freedom of movement between the United Kingdom and the European Union ended on December 31st, so 2021-22 will be the first season whereby a football club cannot easily farm players to European clubs to gain top flight experience.

Scotland is therefore the only country with a half-decent Premier Division where players can be sent freely. Only 12 clubs compete in the SPL each season, so there are slim pickings for English teams to partner with.

These become even slimmer if you are after an established top flight presence, especially as Rangers and Celtic would consider themselves too big to formalise any sort of alliance.

As we said earlier, partnerships between English and Scottish clubs are currently rare. They will likely become more commonplace however as players from England join fish, cheese, furniture and just about anything else you can think of in suddenly being a lot harder to export to the EU.

Brighton have got their foot in the door early by linking up with one of the biggest club in Scotland outside the Old Firm. Clever stuff from the Albion.

Swapping best practices
It may sound like the sort of nonsense you roll your eyes at in an office meeting, but swapping best practices is something Ashworth and Mathie were keen to highlight.

What does this mean? Sharing ideas about sports science, training methods and in a whole host of other areas, presumably. Brighton and Hibs have a lot in common; both won promotion from their country’s second tier between 2016 and 2017 and both now have ambitious aims to establish themselves as forces in the top flight.

Hibs’ third placed finish in the 2020-21 season and reaching the Scottish Cup Final suggests they are a little ahead of the Albion in that regard. Anything that Brighton can learn from the secret of Hibernian’s rise and resurgence has got to be a good thing.

Friendly matches between Brighton and Hibernian
The prospect of friendly matches between Brighton and Hibernian is the part we are most interested in. Not because we are excited about seeing the Seagulls kick a ball around for 90 minutes against Hibs but because of what a trip to Edinburgh might hold.

The WAB team stayed in the Scottish capital the night before the 2015-16 promotion showdown away at Middlesbrough. In the space of a few hours out, we ate haggis lasagne, tried at least 10 different whiskeys (none in pints, sorry Mark McGhee), were introduced to a haggis bomb which replaces the Red Bull element of a Jägerbomb with Irn-Bru and then a man tried to sell us a fridge freezer on the street at 1am in the morning.

A weekend in Edinburgh with a game between Brighton and Hibernian getting in the way could be incredible… especially if Aaron Connolly can let us know which night club is like Shoosh before we arrive.