Todd Boehly is who I bought into. His vision for Chelsea is needed now

Enough is enough. We need a change!

The original leader of the successful bid for Chelsea Football Club back in 2022, wasn’t Behdad Eghbali or Clearlake Capital. It wasn’t them who initiated the bid or cast the vision, or sold the vision to the fans. It was assumed then they wouldn’t be that involved in the running of the project.

The person who sold the dream to us, who sold the bid and the vision, was Todd Boehly. That’s who I signed up for, that’s who sold me on his ownership, and its his vision I believe in. It does involve signing young talent and developing them together, as we’re already doing. But it also involved adding some proven talent to help guide the young talent and deliver success immediately.

However, we all know, Clearlake Capital and Behdad Eghbali, their figurehead, have taken more control than expected. Behdad Eghbali has been running the club day to day, and hands on, for some time now.

As I write, the Sporting Directors, Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, as well as Behdad Eghbali are under pressure like never before.

And let's be clear, they couldn’t be more unpopular right now. The impression Behdad and Clearlake are giving to fans is he is more concerned with profit than with winning. That he’s almost obsessed with PSR deals rather than squad building. And has made no real attempt to connect to the fans, no public comments about his vision for Chelsea, and doesn’t even seem to be listening to the fans.

This isn’t a reactionary take too. When the ‘civil war’ was happening early season, I was as critical then of Behdad and Clearlake as I am now.

Bottom line, whatever the truth of their intentions and plans, has become secondary. People look at what is happening, they judge on actions and realities, and the truth is Clearlake have lost the trust of a lot of, if not most of the fans.

Quite frankly in this Jan 2025 window they’ve drained the life out of me, and it really comes across that although our scouting and football and commerical structure looks really good now, on a day to day basis we’re just not run well. Only the people running the club currently think they’re doing a good job, no one outside them thinks they are.

We’ve signed some top young talent and have a lot of talent at the club, but the transfer strategy (no experience, no proven players, constant swaps), the squad building, and inability to be remotely flexible on their transfer strategy is causing us problems.

But as I’ve said, they are not the only owners of Chelsea. There is some hope.

During the ownership battle in 2022, people were deciding which potential owner they wanted. The reason I chose the current ownership group was one man. Todd Boehly. It was his vision and his history in sports ownership, and his passion for sport in general, which won me over.

When he first became co-owner of the Dodgers back in 2013, he was asked what successful ownership would look like, for him. His reply:

“You’re not really asking me that, are you? The more World Series we win, the more valuable a franchise it is, right?”

Todd Boehly fundamentally believes the way to success in sports ownership is to have a winning team competing for the biggest trophies. Success on the pitch leads to success off it.

I believe his vision of Chelsea was much like the current Real Madrid aligned with elements of Manchester City. Sign the best young talents from all over the world, develop them at a multi-club level or at Chelsea, and align them with a few established elite players to build a winning team which can keep winning in a sustainable way. A young team which grows together and keeps winning. In a huge stadium which generates tons of matchday revenue, with bigger and bigger commercial revenue.

Todd Boehly’s comments which won me over at the time:

“You’ve got to get the fans passionate about winning. You’ve always got to keep remembering the fans’ the centre.

And the second that you veer, just go back to ‘think about the fan, think about the fan’. You’re constantly thinking about giving yourself the best chance to win.”

- Todd Boehly, 2018

Todd Boehly is a winner. Even back from his college days, when he led his college wrestling team to back to back Interstate Athletic Conference Championships in 1990 and 1991, Todd Boehly has been winning, at life and in the sports world.

He wants to make money, yes, like all investors, but he knows the best way to make money is winning. At the Dodgers they have a great “farm team” of young talent, but they also buy the best players around. Indeed they broke the world record for the then biggest contract in sporting history in 2023, worth $700m for Shohei Ohtani one of the best Baseball players in the world. In Otani’s first year at the Dodgers in 2024, they won the World Series, the Champions League of Baseball. It was their second under Boehly’s co-ownership. Boehly just wins.

He also values the input and the views of the fans. He intuitively understands that without the fans on board, and the fans coming to games and buying in to the team and manager, you won’t get anywhere in sports ownership. He also values the input of club legends into the running of the club, people who fundamentally understand the clubs identity and culture.

For example, Simon shared this story on Twitter the other day:

“When he (Todd) first came to Chelsea he literally spent hours in the pubs around Stamford Bridge, speaking to fans and trying to get a feel for it all and the culture of the club through the fans eyes.”

This is an amazing story. What owner does this? This proves to me he really cares, and shows his words about fans aren’t empty. He means what he says, and he genuinely cares about fans perspective, and wants to learn from fans about what they want, their ambitions and what the club is about.

He clearly doesn’t consider himself an expert, and he’ll try to learn as much as he can. He’s even mentioned last year in an interview how he’d had conversations with players about different leagues and how they differ, for example. I heard a story that he asked ex-players and managers of Chelsea what makes a good Chelsea manager, specifically.

It’s so clear how passionate Todd is about sport, and about Chelsea. He wears all the merchandise, he can get passionate when watching mens and women’s games, he’s clearly got an emotional investment in the club. He comes to games, both the mens and womens’ teams. He also, according to Matt Law, has a vision for the next 20 years for Chelsea. A long term sustainable vision of success.

The other thing Todd is passionate about, is putting best in class people in place and trusting them to run the club. Todd is a hands off owner, who lets the experts make the decisions, with a long term perspective. He does this at the Dodgers, he would do it here.

He’s also patient and doesn’t make reactive decisions. In fact he wanted to stick with Mauricio Pochettino last summer, and if he wanted that, he probably would have made some compromises to do so (like keeping Conor and Trev around, possibly). Todd is flexible, he understands you need some flexibility to a plan for it to work. Like being willing to pay elite players a little more, or adding some experienced elite players around your young squad.

But he also values the importance of the academy and player pathways:

“You figure out how to make the academy, that is so top, to collaborate with the first team, you show players the pathway, you teach them about how you're thinking about the future."

Todd Boehly, 2022

Si has reported on this site in the past how Todd immediately fell in love with the club and the academy, he’s told me he has many positive stories about Todd Boehly and Chelsea which not even I know.

I’m not saying we wouldn’t sell Cobham players if Todd was the majority owner, but certainly I don’t believe we’d see the disrespectful treatment they’ve had in the last year-18 months or so. Or them just just being seen as cash cows.

He genuinely values the importance of academy players and what they bring to the club, and their understanding of club culture.

The bottom line for Todd, is always winning. Last year he said:

“Winning is the most important thing. So we’re focussed on winning. If you look at the teams which dominate, they have stability, stability in the team, stability in the front office (sporting directors), stability in the coaching.”

Todd Boehly, 2024

I’m reliably informed Todd Boehly is subscribed to and reads this site, I know he cares about what the fans think.

If I were to say anything to Todd now, I’d tell him I’m pretty sure if he were now to launch an attempt to buy out Clearlake’s stake, he’d have the majority of fans behind him. I think fans understand much more now that Todd has been marginalised to an extent in the last 18 months by Clearlake, and hasn’t been able to enact his full vision for Chelsea, his way. I think fans instinctively can tell Todd is a winner and a sports person at heart. People realise now many of the things which the ownership have been criticised for don’t originate with him.

What do Chelsea fans want? It’s very simple. Chelsea fans want an owner obsessed with winning on the pitch first, and consistently, with some stability in the squad and coaching staff. Making money, though it is important, has to come second.

Fans want an owner who puts the fans first and values the academy as more than just a cash cow to satisfy PSR. Who understands you need a few proven, elite players who know how to win, in key positions to have a successful team, alongside the best young talents in the world, and wants best in class people running the club.

Fans want someone in charge who knows how to treat staff and players as human beings, not commodities, someone with class who respects the history of the club. We’d like an owner who is passionate about the club and has an emotional investment in its success for the long term. Who values the fans perspective and will listen to their views respectfully. Who the CPO can trust to do the right thing with the stadium rebuild and the club overall.

I’m not saying Todd Boehly is perfect, but I have believed since 2022 he is the right man to oversee and control the long term future of Chelsea, and I still believe it now. Yes, he is a businessman, but I also believe he’s fundamentally a good guy who loves sport and loves winning, and crucially, KNOWS how to win. And if Chelsea fans love one thing, it's winning.

If Todd took overall control and sporting control, I personally, and I think many others, would trust him with the club's future, certainly a lot more than many of us trust Behdad Eghbali and Clearlake.

So if you’re reading Todd, just know if you were considering trying to get control, you’d have the majority of the fans behind you, you’d have me behind you advocating for you. We can see you’re a winner who has an emotional investment in Chelsea, and we all want the best future for our club. Many fans increasingly believe you’re the best hope for the long term future of Chelsea. So please, make it happen.

The Score