Former Rovers director of football Gregg Broughton has opened up about his latest role with a "sleeping giant" in the MLS.

Broughton was recently named the new sporting director at Chicago Fire ahead of the upcoming 2025 campaign.

He departed Ewood Park in the summer as part of a restructure on the football side, having spent two years at the club.

Broughton’s CV also includes spells with the likes of Norwich, Luton and Bodo Glimt in various roles.

He will now “oversee talent development” and assist in areas such as “recruitment, negotiation, and retention of players and staff”.

Broughton believes there is plenty of potential at his new club, who finished bottom of the Eastern Conference last season.

“I am in preparation mode really at the moment because of the Visa situation and waiting for the paperwork to allow me to officially go and work in the USA,” he told The SCOUTED Podcast.

“It is such an exciting project, I think the club is one of the sleeping giants in North American sport.

“I think everything is in place in terms of the structure built at the club - a brand new training ground open in January – to really take off.

“Obviously, the benchmark is set high because of the sporting success that Chicago expects as a city from all of the other major sports. Our job now is to try and put Chicago Fire among those greats.”

Broughton also reflected on his time in East Lancashire and the challenges he faced upon his arrival.

“A fantastic club with great heritage and a fantastic supporter base, who demand success because of not only the historic success in the early days of football in England, but also more recent success,” he added.

“When we spoke with the Supporters Group, one of the things that came through was – although they were very proud of the success under Jack Walker, they were equally proud of the period under (Graeme) Souness and (Mark) Hughes where they felt they were over-achieving.

“I came into the job in the first week of June, 2022 and we didn’t have a coach, Tony Mowbray had left a month earlier.

“Tony and his staff had done an unbelievable job at the club to build great foundations and the squad was in a really good place.

“One of the criticisms aimed at the club at that stage was that players were allowed to leave, their contracts had expired too easily. (Joe) Rothwell, (Darragh) Lenihan and others left in that period.

“The two big challenges were the head coach but also to ensure that we were proactive on contract renewal so that – if we were going to generate a player-trading model, which was one of the things set out – we had to ensure that players were working within contracts that allowed the club to trade.”