Former City Winger Joins Crawley Town

Filipe Morais Joins Crawley Town

Crawley Town have today confirmed the signing of Portuguese midfielder Filipe Morais on a three-year contract.  Morais joins the club as a free agent after his contract with Sky Bet Championship side Bolton Wanderers expired last month.

Morais, has a wealth of experience in the British game going back 13 years to his time at Chelsea as a trainee, he has also played for his national team twice with Portugal’s U21’s.  Whilst at Stamford Bridge he had loan spells with MK Dons, Millwall and St Johnstone before he joined Hibernian on a free transfer in 2007.

He had two seasons at Easter Road making 36 appearances before finishing the 2008-09 season at Scottish Premier League club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. The following  year he made 33 appearances in his second spell at St Johnstone before heading back south for two seasons in Sky Bet League One at Oldham Athletic., before heading to Stevenage Borough to make another 66 appearance.

Morais, then joined Bradford City in Sky Bet League One where the playmaker made 71 appearances, scoring 5 goals for the club the most famous of which against his former club and manager at Stamford Bridge to knock Chelsea out of the FA Cup.  He then linked up with his former Bradford City boss Phil Parkinson at Bolton Wanderers, for whom he made 56 appearances for in 18 months, including 37 last season in the Championship as Bolton survived on the final day of the season.

Speaking about the signing Head Coach Harry Kewell said, “Filipe is a tremendous acquisition for us, he was excellent for Bolton Wanderers in the Sky Bet Championship last season and when he was released my assistant Warren Feeney, who knows him well, was in touch straight away.  It has been on the boil for a few weeks now and the club has shown their ambition with this signing.

He is a playmaker that can play anywhere across midfield and has contributed 42 goals to his previous clubs in 390 appearances.  He is excellent on the ball and is a real threat at set pieces. With Romain Vincelot signing as well it has been a very good day for us and I hope shows to our supporters that we are really looking to build on the progress we made last season.”