Chelsea has endured a horrendous Premier League season, their first after the takeover by the Boehly-led consortium. On the day that he and his group successfully acquired Chelsea for £4.25 billion from Roman Abramovich, who was forced to sell the team after 19 years due to sanctions imposed by the UK government due to his alleged ties to Vladimir Putin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Todd Boehly made his intentions clear. Chelsea was in an unheard-of situation as a result of the government’s interference. Almost every facet of the organization was shut down, with the exception of the teams, raising questions about whether it could even carry on without a speedy takeover.
Boehly stepped in at that point. In addition to securing Chelsea’s future, the American investor who fronted the then-record acquisition of a sports team pledged to keep adding to the 21 major trophies the club had already won under Abramovich. But after a year, it’s unlikely that any Chelsea fans would feel “proud” of the team’s accomplishments, and the “remarkable history of success” seems farther away than it has in any of the previous 20 years.
Chelsea is preparing for its worst Premier League finish in 27 years after spending more than £600 million on 19 new players and having four different coaches in charge of the first squad. They have just two games left to play before they can end a really dismal season, the first of which is a trip to Manchester United on Thursday, live on Sky Sports. The owners of Chelsea face difficult decisions as they examine the ruins of a disastrous inaugural campaign at Stamford Bridge.
There was little indication that Boehly and his partner Behdad Eghbali, a co-founder of the private equity company Clearlake Capital, which was a substantial component of Boehly’s consortium, were settling into life in west London. Despite Chelsea’s prior success, the two men rapidly made themselves known as the most involved of the club’s new owners and they were determined to run things their way.
The chairman, Bruce Buck, the director closely associated with Abramovich, Marina Granovskaia, and Petr Cech—who had been working as the technical and performance advisor—were the first notable exits. The medical director Paco Biosca and the head physiotherapist Thierry Laurent were among those who left, while Wesley Fofana was unusually flown to New York for a physical before finalizing his £75 million move. Those actions demonstrated Boehly and Eghbali’s commitment to doing things differently, but there were yet more, even more, significant deviations to come.
Even though several people surrounding him left the club when the new owners came, Thomas Tuchel’s position appeared to be secure. After helping Chelsea to the 2021 Champions League title, Tuchel became quickly regarded as a hero by the team’s supporters. The following year, he also guided Chelsea to success in the European Super Cup and Club World Cup. But Tuchel’s team’s triumph wasn’t the only thing that won the manager’s admiration; he also had to do with the way he behaved himself in the chaotic final months of the 2021/22 season due to the sanctions.
It didn’t take long, though, for tension to develop between Tuchel and his new superiors. During a preseason match in Florida against Arsenal, Tuchel responded angrily and was unable to conceal his anger about the slow pace of new acquisitions. There were just two significant acquisitions with barely two weeks till the start of the Premier League season: Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly. Just two months following their acquisition, during which Boehly in particular lost no time in making himself known within the football world, Tuchel had made his displeasure with his employers public.
However, the process has been interesting and not without controversy, as has been the case with everything at Chelsea over the past 12 months. Although Mauricio Pochettino has accepted to take the position as the next head coach, there have been many candidates considered for the position, and it has been over two months since Potter was fired. Whether Chelsea’s season is viewed as a fluke or the start of the end of their trophy-winning dynasty may depend on whether people with that specialized expertise are allowed the freedom to put it into practise.
For more football news, click here
