Edu role explained as SAC confirm desire to sign Brazilian players
Cobblers co-chairman João Xavier has confirmed that former Arsenal midfielder and technical director Edu Gaspar is working as an advisor for Sports Alpa Capital.
The 48-year-old Brazilian, who played 16 times for his country, was part of Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ team in the 2003/04 season and also represented Valencia and Corinthians during his playing career. Since retiring, he’s worked as technical director at Arsenal and then became Nottingham Forest’s Global Head of Football in 2025.
Edu was recently appointed to the board of directors at Bulgarian side Levski Sofia. Atanas Bostandjiev, who was one of three people deemed ‘suitable’ by the Independent football Regulator to own Northampton, is the majority owner of Levski Sofia. The team are currently top of the Bulgarian league and will be competing in the Europa League this season.
However, speaking at Thursday’s Open Forum, Xavier said there is - and never will be - a direct link between Northampton and Levski.
“We are very proud to have Alex (Pato) with us and Edu with us too,” he explained. “We became friends as he had a role at Nottingham Forest and I asked him to help me learn more about English football.
“Edu is a senior advisor for one of our partners, acting as an advisor for Levski Sofia and also here, helping us navigate the sporting questions here at the club, not day to day, just when we ask him and when we need him. The club will never be part of a multi club ownership, no other club is part of our project.”
Meanwhile, SAC co-founder Pedro Piquet reiterated the group’s desire to bring Brazilian players to Sixfields.
He said: “Absolutely, there are rules and regulations to navigate and that is an avenue we will explore, subject of course to the manager’s requirements. We have been figuring out how we can make that happen. We want to strengthen the connection between Brazil and Northampton. We have explored some names but we can’t make any promises.”
Later in the evening, co-chairman Tim Chamberlain revealed that SAC were hoping to complete their takeover before the end of the transfer window, explaining: “We thought we would have part of the transfer window in the summer but the process dragged on.
“We can’t thank Kelvin (Thomas), Nigel (Le Quesne) and David (Bower) enough. We were not making decisions in the summer but we were included in discussions and we took decisions together.”