Steve Gibson has defended his decision to make Aitor Karanka Middlesbrough's first foreign manager by arguing that the appointment is an inevitable consequence of football's increasing globalisation.

Middlesbrough's owner knows that in overlooking a raft of available English coaches in favour of the Spaniard he has probably dismayed Greg Dyke, the Football Association chairman, but he remains convinced José Mourinho's former assistant at Real Madrid is the right coach to lead Boro back into the Premier League.

"It's about self-interest," said Gibson, who sacked Tony Mowbray last month before determining to alter Boro's entire culture with a foreign appointment. "Greg Dyke's got his self-interest which is the FA and I've got my self-interest which is Middlesbrough Football Club. I'm an Englishman and I always want Englishmen to do well but this is the right decision for me. And maybe our English footballers can learn from the Spanish influence. The greatest football-producing nation of this generation has been Spain.

"This is a real change for our club but football is global now – we're all one. In the past I've been accused of being a little Englander but the game has become global and we were searching for a first-class coach. We set down a clear template of what we were looking for and Aitor was the outstanding candidate."

The 40-year-old Karanka – a former Real Madrid central defender who spent three years assisting Mourinho at the Bernabéu – is a highly regarded coach in Spain, where he previously enjoyed a successful stint in charge of the national under-16 side.

Like Gibson, Karanka has close links with Jorges Mendes, the football agent, and Peter Kenyon, the former Chelsea and Manchester United chief executive. Indeed, along with Mourinho, Mendes and Kenyon helped steer him to Boro rather than Crystal Palace, who coveted the Spaniard as Ian Holloway's successor.

"José Mourinho recommended to me that I should come to Middlesbrough because he believes in this project," said Karanka. "I've spoken to José about 10, or maybe 20, times in the last two days."

Gibson also sought counsel from Chelsea's manager. "José Mourinho said to me 'just get him'," recounted an owner busy building relationships with some leading European clubs including Atlético Madrid and Juventus, which should lead to mutually beneficial loan arrangements.

"We have links with other clubs. Some links we want to talk about, some we don't," said Gibson, who trusts Karanka may be able to persuade Mourinho to do him a few favours when it comes to loaning out Chelsea players. "We've got a link-up with Atlético Madrid and we've actually placed some of the youngsters from our academy into Madrid.

"They're all Middlesbrough lads who've come through our system but they've not seen an alternative lifestyle. We thought it would give them a good insight, shake them up a bit to go to Spain for three months and see another culture. It's not a holiday, they're working hard, in the evenings they have Spanish lessons for two or three hours. It's a proper cultural exchange. Lads from Atlético will be coming over later in the season."

Karanka very nearly swapped Spain for north-east England in 2005 only to see a mooted move to Steve McClaren's Boro fail to beat the transfer deadline. "It was the last day of the window," recalled McClaren's latest successor. "I had a call at 5pm and we didn't have time to sign the contract. Middlesbrough wanted me and I would have loved to come here but it was not possible at that time."

Back then Boro were in the Premier League, had won the League Cup a year earlier and were a season away from reaching the Uefa Cup final. Today, though, Karanka has finally arrived at the club's international-calibre training facility near Darlington with the team eight points short of the Championship play-off places and only five above the division's relegation zone.

As desperate as their new manager is to join three other former Mourinho proteges, André Villas-Boas, Brendan Rodgers and Steve Clarke, at the helm of a Premier League side, Boro's return to the elite may, realistically, take time.

"The aim is to take Boro into the Premier League and I hope it's soon," Karanka said. "It's difficult to say if it will be next season. We are in November, we will try to do everything well from the first day but it will be difficult."

He has already studied DVDs of all Boro's games this season and compiled a preliminary squad evaluation, with Jonathan Woodgate in particular catching his eye. If the erstwhile England centre-half can stay fit – an admittedly big if – he will surely be integral to a philosophy big on building from the back, patient passing and possession retention.

"The players here are good," continued Karanka. "There is a player who played in Real Madrid, Jonathan Woodgate. He is important for the team, for the club. He is from here. With Woodgate, we are going to build a good project to get promotion. I also know our academy is brilliant and I believe 100% in promoting youth."

After watching Boro slide, almost imperceptibly, from national prominence to relative anonymity under Gareth Southgate, Gordon Strachan and Mowbray, Gibson remained a little more circumspect, a bit more pessimistic. "We want promotion as quickly as realistically possible," he said. "But we're so handicapped this year. We're so far off the pace. Are we good enough? I don't know. The talent has to be there. If the talent isn't there you can't manage it in. There's no magic wand. Aitor's worked very hard over the last few weeks in terms of evaluating the players and the way we've played. He's perhaps more optimistic than me."