Brighton and Hove Albion have confirmed that head of recruitment Sam Jewell has accepted an offer to join Chelsea – the 11th player or staff member to depart the Amex Stadium for Stamford Bridge in the last 18 months.

Jewell took over from Paul Winstanley as Brighton’s head of recruitment back in 2022, when Winstanley also joined Chelsea to take up the role of director of global talent and transfers, and has enjoyed incredible success in his role at Brighton, playing a key role in the signings of Alexis Mac Allister, Julio Enciso and Moises Caicedo among others.

But Brighton have confirmed that Jewell will commence a period of gardening leave after accepting a new job at Chelsea, with Mike Cave, assistant technical director, taking over his responsibilities with the support of scouting and intelligence manager, George Holmes.

Jewell is the latest in a long line of staff members that Chelsea have poached from Brighton since Todd Boehly assumed control of the club from Roman Abramovich in May 2022.

The recruitment guru is the 11th player or staff member to be poached from the south coast in the last 18 months, with head coach Graham Potter sparking the exodus of off-pitch figures when he was appointed by the Blues in September 2022.

Potter was followed by Billy Reid, Bruno Saltor, Bjorn Hamberg, Ben Roberts, Kyle Macaulay and Winstanley, before Chelsea, under the free-spending BlueCo regime, forked out close to £180m on Marc Cucurella, Robert Sanchez and Caicedo.

Jewell is expected to take on more responsibilities at Chelsea compared to his recruitment position at Brighton, with the 34-year-old’s expertise required across BlueCo’s multi-club model (per The Athletic).

Chelsea’s owners added French top-flight side Strasbourg to the portfolio of sporting assets in June with the view of building a stable of interlinked clubs in the model of City Football Group (CFG). Manchester City are at the centre-piece of a 13-club group spanning five continents. BlueCo are at the embryonic stages of this ambitious project and Jewell has reportedly been drafted in to oversee its expansion.

Strasbourg fans have repeatedly protested against their new owners this season and Chelsea, the team theoretically at the heart of this project, are languishing in the Premier League’s mid-table.