Todd Boehly made his mark quickly. Chelsea.
Since formally acquiring the club from Roman Abramovich at the end of May, the group he fronts with Clearlake Capital has overseen more than £250million ($289.9m) in transfer fees New signings are being considered and a complete overhaul of the senior football structure at Stamford Bridge — culminating last week in the controversial decision to sack Champions League-winning Thomas Tuchel is the head coach.
Chelsea fans have been left with a lot of questions, making Boehly’s appearance at this year’s SALT conference, a “global thought leadership and networking forum”, in New York all the more timely. He spoke for 27 minutes about his first summer as co-owner and manager of a European elite football club. He also discussed future plans.
#ChelseaFC Chairman Todd Boehly offered a candid and thoughtful look into the life of sports & business, today at #𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗧𝗡𝗬.
Full interview available here https://t.co/g6wzCBsfXG
— SALT 🇺🇦 (@SALTConference) September 13, 2022
The Athletic takes a closer look at his most important comments during the interview and what they mean from a Chelsea perspective…
Boehly: “Why isn’t there an All-Star game? The pyramid is getting more money. MLB did their All-Star game in LA this year and we made $200 million (£173m) from a Monday and a Tuesday. You could also do a North vs South All-Star gameThe Premier League and fund the pyramid easily.”
Although this was the statement that made the most headlines, it was not only about Chelsea. I won’t get into the question of whether an All-Star Game would be a good idea. North vs SouthIt would not be the best way to organize it or if anyone would be willing to use the proceeds. “The pyramid must be funded”,The suggestion is more than just a concept.
It is clear that Clearlake, Boehly, and Clearlake aren’t just passengers on the Premier League train. They have big ideas, and one of their top priorities is to find new revenue sources for the entire competition.
Clearlake co-founder Behdad Elgbali, Boehly’s co-founder, attended the June meeting of Premier League club representatives from North Yorkshire. Boehly also hosted a dinner for club executives in London following the July meeting. They aim to create positive relationships and become forward-thinking, collaborative partners that can support the continued growth of the most lucrative league on the planet.
Although not all of their ideas will win traction and wider support for the project, the All-Star suggestion should indicate that Boehly will continue to be active in making bold suggestions.
“We’ve talked about having a multi-club model. I would love to grow the footprint. There are many countries that have advantages to having clubs. Red Bull does an excellent job with Salzburg. LeipzigBoth are part of the Champions League. They’ve figured out how to make that work. You are now. Manchester CityIt has been called a “successful” There are many clubs in the network.
“The challenge at Chelsea is that when you have 18-, 19-, 20-year-old superstars, you can loan them out to other clubs but you put their development in someone else’s hands. Our goal is for our young superstars, to be able to step onto the Chelsea pitch with real game time. To me, the way to do that is through another club somewhere in a really competitive league in Europe.”
This was, without a doubt, the most interesting of Boehly’s answers. Chelsea has been struggling with the youth development pathway question over a decade. Abramovich pursued an altered version of what Boehly was describing here, in the form a long-running informal relation with Chelsea Eredivisie club Vitesse Arnhem.
Between 2009-2021, 29 players were loaned from Chelsea to Vitesse. They included Nemanja Motic, Patrick van Aanholt and Bertrand Traore. Mason Mount Armando BrojaThere are many developmental outcomes.
Vitesse came to be known as “Chelsea B” given so many made the trip from London to the Netherlands (Photos: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
Boehly desires a closer and more harmonious relationship. The Red Bull example is instructive. The Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig ecosystem has created the conditions for a conveyor system of talent. Naby KeitaDayot Utamecano Konrad Laimer, Dominik szoboszlai, Dayot Sesko and most recently Benjamin Sesko.
The other big Abramovich era experiment was Chelsea’s controversial mass loan system, but the intractable problem of outsourcing player development to unaffiliated clubs created too much stagnation and wastage. New FIFA loan restrictionsAlso, this means that it is no longer possible to implement this strategy on a large scale.
Having another club elsewhere in Europe, definitively tied to Chelsea by shared ownership, might prove a much more effective solution — depending on the level at which that club plays and just how cohesive the relationship proves to be.
“If you look at what our academy has developed, it’s Mo Salah, Kevin De BruyneTammy Abraham was the most recent addition to this list. Reece JamesMason Mount Trevoh Chalobah. We have 10 or 11 players right now who are either on loan controlled by us, we have the right to buy them back, or they’re playing for our team that came from our academy.
“What we really need is a place to put our 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds to develop them, in Portugal, Belgium or somewhere like that. Make sure they get the opportunity (GBE points) they need and also get them out of South America and into Portugal, which is a perfect example, we think, and then to get them on the pitch for Chelsea.”
Boehly’s mistake of classifying Salah & De Bruyne in Chelsea academy products is embarrassing and fuelling The stereotypical American owner is a clueless oneThis is obviously unfair in the context of all the other things he said during the SALT interview. It’s also not the most interesting or important part of this answer.
First, there is a clear hint of where Chelsea’s owners are looking to buy their developmental club: in Belgium or Portugal, which would carry the cultural benefit of being the ideal place to store any talented Brazilians the club might buy who are not quite ready to shine at Stamford Bridge. It’s already a well-established entry point for young Brazilians looking to make careers in Europe, and Benfica, Porto and Sporting Lisbon have all done well financially by facilitating their journeys.
Abraham’s return to Chelsea looks more possible now that Tuchel is out of the club. (Photo by Jeroen Meuwsen/BSR Agency/Getty Image)
Another intriguing reference is to the academy players who Chelsea has the right to purchase back at pre-agreed rates. Clearlake and Boehly both know the cost of resigning. Tino LivramentoFrom SouthamptonOder Abraham is from RomaTuchel, who was the head coach at Stamford Bridge and who had previously frozen him out, has left to make his return much easier.
On that subject…
“When you take over any business, you need to make sure you’re aligned with the people that are operating the business. Tuchel is an extremely talented person who achieved great success at Chelsea. We wanted to find a coach who was willing to work with us.
“The reality of our decision was we just weren’t sure Thomas saw it the same way we saw it. No one’s right or wrong, we just didn’t have a shared vision for the future. It wasn’t about Zagreb, it was about the shared vision for what we want Chelsea Football Club to look like. It wasn’t a decision made because of a single win or loss, it was a decision made about what we thought was the right vision for the club.”
Tensions between the head coach and Chelsea’s new owners went far beyond an underwhelming start to the season. Conversations about recruitment strategy were not smooth throughout this chaotic summer. Tuchel refused to take on more responsibility for the transfer process and also expressed frustration at the way Boehly & Eghbali managed the transfer window. In the end — and the end for Tuchel was sealed before Chelsea’s Dinamo loses 1-0 — they simply decided they could not work with him.
There are many qualities that we recommend. Graham Potter to his new owners as Tuchel’s replacement were his more collaborative spirit, his trust in youth, his desire to improve players in his core role as head coach, and his broader willingness to work within the structure they are building.
In light of these larger cultural considerations, it was less important to consider whether Potter is as skilled as Tuchel in the tactical aspect of the game. He will need to win to make it last.
“The Champions League has a big component of that (the proposed European Super League) already. The best clubs in Europe are playing in the highest competition. If you win the Champions League you make more than €100 million ($100m, £87m). There are other ways you can play other elite European clubs in the summer. It’s hard to imagine the sport changing because of the passion it inspires. I never say hard nos, I like to keep options alive, but it’s not something we’re talking about at all.”
These aren’t the words that Real Madrid’s Florentino Perez, Joan Laporta of Barcelona Juventus president Andrea Agnelli were hoping to hear from Boehly, but they will go down well with the Chelsea supporters who protested fiercely on Fulham Road and online against the European Super League’s attempted coup in April 2021.
Chelsea fans voiced their support for the European Super League (Photo: Rob Pinney/Getty Images).
They also reinforce Boehly’s underlying message in his All-Star game answer: Chelsea’s owners are looking for ways to grow the revenues of their club and the game as a whole within its existing structures, rather than ripping up the established order of the past 30 years and creating something new.
Boehly’s final line is the kind of caveat that any businessman would include, and if the financial equation starts shifting dramatically in favour of a European Super League his thinking could change accordingly. The Premier League is currently in place. A very strong financial positionComparatively to any other domestic European league, Chelsea, being one of its leading clubs is well-positioned for maintaining and enriching itself as elite contenders.
(Top photo by Denis Lovrovic/AFP via Getty Images
