Swindon Town have finally issued an update on the delayed appointment of Ed Brand as Assistant Head Coach.
Former Chelsea coach Jody Morris was officially appointed as the Robins’ new manager at the end of last month and it was immediately expected that he would bring the Premier League club’s under-18 coach Ed Brand with him to the County Ground.
Nearly three weeks after Morris’ appointment, Brand remains in West London and the new boss issued an update himself last week, saying;
“We’re still waiting for confirmation.
“The number of conversations that have gone on between the EFL, Chelsea, and Swindon has been very high.
“I’m hoping for it to be sorted quickly because it’s been dragging on for far too long now and it’s something that needs to be done as soon as possible.
“You want people that you bring to a club to be able to do their job to its full capacity, and at the moment, he’s not able to do that.
“That does have an effect on how things operate internally, but hopefully we won’t be talking about it for much longer and it’ll be sorted soon.”
Fans of the League Two club have been patiently waiting for the club to inform them of developments throughout the week and the Wiltshire club have this evening released a statement confirming a secondment has been agreed with Chelsea and is now awaiting approval from the FA, Premier League and the EFL.
Appearing on the club website, the statement read;
“Following Jody’s arrival at the County Ground, a secondment between Premier League side Chelsea, where Ed has been an academy coach since 2008, and Swindon Town, was agreed by both clubs.
“Given the arrangement between ourselves and Chelsea, there is a detailed application process we must go through to comply with all contractual and legal regulations, which then requires sign off by the appropriate football associations and governing bodies.
“In order to bring Ed into the football club at the earliest opportunity, we submitted these documents alongside Chelsea to the FA, Premier League and the EFL, but the approval process has taken longer than anticipated.
“As a football club, we recognise the importance of completing all the necessary due diligence and ensuring this particular agreement meets all relevant protocols.
“We will continue working with the FA and EFL in the hope we receive final written approval from both respective FA and EFL boards in due course.”
Morris has endured a difficult start to life at Swindon thus far, losing all three of his games in charge. The 44-year-old will be hoping to halt the poor run of form tomorrow when he takes his team to promotion-chasing Salford City.
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Our View – Ryan Whelan – Senior Editor/Co-Owner
This has been an ongoing saga, you can see the frustration in Jody Morris’ responses in his press conferences. It may be frustrating and confusing but it’s more a case of Swindon trying extra hard to secure the man Morris wants by his side despite certain roadblocks being put up. Paperwork was submitted back when I published the article stating the issues were resolved however EFL/FA approval hasn’t been as quick as anticipated, as this is not a very common agreement especially when it comes to a role such as the assistant manager of a club. I do expect it to go through its just a waiting game. There are big developments going on behind the scenes at Swindon at the moment and I sense myself and the other journalists will be very busy in the coming weeks.
