Brighton & Hove Albion’s pre-season plans were put in disarray, and the club has U.S. President Donald Trump, among other world leaders, to thank for that.
The Seagulls were set to have training camp this week in the French town of Evian-les-Bains, using the local fields near the Hotel Royal Resort, where they would have been based. However, when a small group of Brighton staffers arrived early to prepare the facilities, they quickly discovered that the fields had been torn up and rendered unusable, according to a report from The Athletic.
President Trump, the president of France Emmanuel Macron and former U.K. prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, among other world leaders, had used the fields as helicopter landing pads ahead of last month’s three-day Group of Seven (G7) summit in the town, an informal and annual grouping of democracies—France, Italy, Germany, U.K., U.S., Japan and Canada—to discuss geopolitical issues.
As a result, Brighton have been forced to alter their preseason training plans, ahead of the start of the new Premier League campaign on Aug. 21.
Brighton Change Preseason Location
Fabian Hürzeler’s men remained at Brighton’s headquarters in Lancing, West Sussex for training on Friday, but will fly out this weekend to an alternate camp in Austria now.
They were forced to cancel Saturday’s friendly against FC Annecy, a French Ligue 2 team, but the subsequent closed friendly against Ligue 1’s Strasbourg will continue as planned on Aug. 1.
Brighton will have two more friendlies in early August—home matches against Roma and Bologna on Aug. 8 and Aug. 15, respectively—before the regular season starts. They begin Premier League play against Aston Villa on Aug. 23, at the Amex Stadium.
Brighton finished in eighth last season, earning qualification for the UEFA Conference League.
