If Clearlake want profit, put the football first

Profit isn't a bad thing, but football HAS to come first at Chelsea

I’ve just written an article saying that Chelsea have lost our soul, because our owners are too obsessed with figures on a spreadsheet than the success of the football teams, or the fans. I believe this passionately, and I firmly believe when money is your prime focus when running a football club, its not a recipe for success on the pitch.

However whilst this is true, there’s no magic money tree in football. In order to exist, football clubs need to be run well as a business, in a sustainable, profitable way. We’ve seen some historic clubs - and indeed our own club - nearly go out of business because they weren’t run well off the pitch.

In the days of PSR even more so, its vital clubs are run well from a business perspective to comply with the rules and avoid serious punishment.

In modern football, especially at big clubs, this is always the tension. Prioritising creating a winning team, a squad capable of competing at the highest level for the biggest trophies, but also being run sustainably, profitably, and within the rules as a football club.

As much as we hate all the talk about profit and business in football, its a necessary evil in modern football, especially in the Premier League where we don’t have the 50 percent rule as they do in Germany. Also, as a fan who has seen Chelsea nearly disappear 3 times in my lifetime, I cannot allow the club I love to be run in a flagrant, irresponsible financial way which risks the clubs existence.

My desire for a long long time has been for Chelsea to be able to pay for our own success. Chelsea have never really done this, hence a lot of the jealousy and hatred towards us. I believe the potential is there for Chelsea to be not just self-sustaining but actually a high revenue, genuinely wealthy club which can pay for its own success - and to do this in a way which keeps fans front and centre, doesn’t exploit fans, keeps the soul of the club intact and thriving, and prioritises football over profit.

This is why I was and am such an advocate for Todd Boehly’s vision, because this is pretty much how he envisions Chelsea if he were to ever get full control.

There’s nothing inherently wrong in a football club wanting to be profitable. What is wrong, is when this is prioritized over the success on the pitch, and is used to exploit the fans, both of which are completely unacceptable.

The opportunity is there, if we can get Champions League (and we will eventually), to increase revenue by at least 60% on the average of about £500m per year we make now, and the current figure includes player sales. If we can increase our annual revenue to £750-800m we can then compete financially with Manchester City, and might be able to have flexibility in our wage bill or increase our base salaries. Ideally we’d also lower season ticket and matchday prices for fans, but I’m not naive enough to think that will happen. But we can at least hold off on increases for a few years, a we’ve done before.

To be fair to Clearlake, they have a history of investing in companies, increasing their profitability multiple times over, and increasing the value of the company. They do know how to do that. However, we know football is a very unique industry.

I checked the official Clearlake website, and their list of assets.

Chelsea are listed under the category of “Technology and Consumer Services - Media”, which frankly says it all. I agree with many fans' concerns that Clearlake are prioritising profit over football. If you own a football club, your priority should be football and winning football matches and trophies. Period. If its not, find another investment.

But at the same time, it's very clear from anyone who follows football, that the clubs with the biggest profits and revenues - Real Madrid, Manchester City, Barcelona, PSG, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, are clubs who play regular Champions League football and compete for the big trophies, both domestically and European, every single season. The numbers are conclusive.

If we just do what Brighton do and sell players for profit to make our money and settle for 6th or below, as some think is the plan, we’ll never get close to the £750m-800m plus figures of all those clubs.

Brighton don’t make that much revenue - around £200m a year even with all their player sales - and we’ve been selling players for years, and made big profits that way, yet never got much past £500m in revenue. Also the value of Chelsea as their “asset” won’t go anywhere near as high as it would with success.

There’s literally no benefit to Clearlake to simply be like Brighton. In fact, it hits them hard in the wallet if we do.

That’s why I don’t believe our goal is to simply be a London version of Brighton, but take the element of finding elite young talent, and keep the best ones instead of selling them. Having player sales for profit be a regular revenue stream for the club - which if done properly isn’t a bad thing. Keep your best players, your elite, world class players. Squad players or players who don’t fit, you move on for profit to keep the club profitable. Marina Granovskaia did this in the latter part of the Abramovich era and we’ve done it so far in the current regime.

Sadly, my suspicion is they will happy to be where Chelsea were under Maurizio Sarri, Frank Lampard and Thomas Tuchel. A side which finishes 3rd/4th every year comfortably, wins some knockout competitions, has good European runs, and that’s it. They won’t push hard to compete with Real Madrid or Manchester City, just enough to get the profits they want. And that’s not who we are. But more on that in another article.

From Clearlake’s perspective, if we sign young talent cheaper for the long term, paying lower wages, and they succeed, it means if success comes the profit margins will be much higher. Like Liverpool do now, big revenues, but control over the wage structure.

So I want Chelsea to be run well and achieve our potential on and off the pitch, in terms of winning PL titles, CL titles on the pitch, and big revenues and profit off it. I then want that to be passed on to fans with ticket freezes or reductions, and investment in top class players to maintain success on the pitch.

Football has to be the priority for any football club, because of its success on the pitch which the fans really want and care about.

This has to be clear to Clearlake, and to any owner of a football club.

The goal of a football club is to win on the pitch first. Period.

This is what fans want. Chelsea fans won’t be content with being a good cup side who plays CL football, we want to win the PL and CL and compete for them every year.

But being run profitably from a business perspective, success on the pitch secures the clubs financial future off the pitch and means we can pay for ourselves, not having to worry about liquidation ever again. The business side needs the football side to succeed for it to succeed - so even from a business perspective, football should be first.

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