Fabian Hurzeler Lost His Art Dealer Job for Watching Too Much Football

• Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler worked for an art dealer selling paintings to wealthy Bavarians and was fired for spending too much time watching football, according to BBC Sport.
• Hurzeler was booed by his own fans in February with Brighton 14th in the table, and his side beat Crystal Palace 5-0 on Sunday.
• He became the youngest permanent manager in Premier League history at 31 and has won 11 of 18 top-flight games in his current run.

From Selling Paintings to Sacked-in-the-Morning Chants

Before Fabian Hurzeler managed in the Premier League, he sold paintings to wealthy Bavarians. He lost that job, he told the Guardian in 2024, for spending too much time watching games. BBC Sport tells the story of how a man who worked in Germany’s fifth tier became one of Europe’s most talked-about young managers, and Brighton’s 5-0 win over Crystal Palace on Sunday added a fresh chapter.

The opponent made the result sweeter. In February, Brighton lost 1-0 at home to Palace, and Hurzeler heard his own supporters chant “you’re getting sacked in the morning”. His team were 14th in the table with one win in 12 Premier League matches. “There are only two options,” he said afterwards. “Give up or keep pushing harder, and that’s always the option I choose in my life.”

Eight months later, Brighton have won 11 of 18 top-flight games. The run took them back into Europe and, according to BBC Sport, left fans who once shouted “you don’t know what you’re doing” worried that a bigger club could take him. On Sunday, Diego Gomez scored from the halfway line in the 5-0 win at the Amex, according to Sky Sports.

How Selling Pictures Led to a Premier League Job

Hurzeler was born in Houston, Texas, and moved to Germany at the age of two. As a midfielder he spent time in the reserves at Bayern Munich, Hoffenheim and 1860 Munich. In 2016, after one injury too many, he gave up playing at 23 and took a player-manager job at Pipinsried, a fifth-tier village club about 30 miles from Munich.

To make ends meet, he worked for the art dealer. In the 2024 Guardian interview, he drew a comparison between selling pictures and managing players. “If you want to sell something to a person, you have to try to convince them by doing something,” he said. “The most important thing is to understand the person behind the player. What are his needs? What are his values?”

His curiosity was just as intense at St Pauli, whom he led back to the Bundesliga in 2024 after a 13-year absence. He was invited to Tottenham’s training ground to watch Ange Postecoglou’s team train, and BBC Sport reports he asked so many questions that Postecoglou had to ask another member of his coaching staff to take over. At Brighton, he picked up tips from Roberto de Zerbi a few months before replacing him. Hurzeler got the job after Kieran McKenna, who had been heavily linked, chose to stay at newly promoted Ipswich.

The Boos, the Back-to-Basics Fix and the Doubters

Hurzeler was appointed in June 2024 at the age of 31, and the start was rough. Brighton were beaten 7-0 at Nottingham Forest in his first season. After a 4-2 defeat at Chelsea in September 2024, former Arsenal and England defender Martin Keown called him “wet behind the ears” on the BBC’s Final Score.

Last season’s slump went further. Scott McCarthy of the We Are Brighton fan site told BBC Sport that Hurzeler “looked like a manager who was out of ideas” and that, leaving the stadium after the Palace defeat, “the only conversation fans were having was: ‘he has got to go’.” Now the mood has flipped. “It’s totally different now,” McCarthy said. “It’s worked out phenomenally.”

McCarthy credits a change of approach. “Hurzeler went back to basics,” he said, adding that the manager “relied on an experienced core in the side to get out of the hole”. He said that shows the manager’s pragmatic side: “You get managers who are wedded to their philosophy and won’t change.” The result, he said, is “a team more in his image”, and “they press insanely”.

Former Brighton striker Glenn Murray backed that view. “You learn more about yourself and the people around you when you are losing games,” he told BBC Sport. “Hurzeler has come out the other side and the way he has got this group of players performing is exceptional.”

Will a Bigger Club Come Calling?

Brighton gave Hurzeler a long-term contract before the end of last season, with the new deal running to 2029, and £150m to spend on signings in the summer. Even so, BBC Sport reported that chat on post-match phone-ins after the win at Sunderland on 10 October suggested he could be a prime target for a big club, and noted that he has been linked with Manchester United should they decide to replace Michael Carrick.

McCarthy does not expect him to go. “I personally don’t think he will go,” he said. “He didn’t become a Premier League manager at the age of 31 without having his head screwed on. Does he want to go to another club where he isn’t going to get time? What has happened at Brighton has shown he needs two-and-a-half-years to build a squad.”

Back in Pipinsried, his name is still revered. Sepp Ankner, the club’s chief finance officer, told The Athletic in 2024 that when Hurzeler returns he “talks to everybody” and has “really retained that connection”. The man fired for watching too much football now gets paid to watch it.