Two men. One club. What happens now?
Battle is commencing... and fans have to suffer, again.
So it looks like we’re in for a ride again at Chelsea. Drama never really ends at Chelsea, does it?
We have our two co-owners, Todd Boehly and his allies (38% of the ownership) and Clearlake, led by Behdad Egbhali, with 62% of the club, including a minority % owned individually by Behdad Eghbali and his Clearlake ally Jose Feliciano.
Noises coming from both sides about wanting to purchase the others shares, and both saying they aren’t selling to each other. Selling to a third party needs to be approved by all, so is unlikely.
None of us knows what’s going to happen. It won’t be resolved quickly either. This isn’t good for the club or fair on the fans, players or Enzo Maresca, for whom this will be another distraction.
I’ll share my thoughts on what will happen later. First, cards on the table, I’d prefer a Todd Boehly ownership to a Clearlake one.
I don’t think Clearlake would be awful, despite what some people think. They want to win, they want success, because that delivers the biggest revenue and makes them the most profit when they choose to sell. It’s that simple. They want to make money, and winning and playing regular Champions League football brings in the biggest revenue and profits.
I don’t think they know how to win yet, they have no experience in sport, yet alone football. They also don’t know how to build an elite squad, and their unwillingness to sign proven talent to supplement the young talent is holding us back, as I’ve been saying on this site for over a year.
For me, I trust Todd Boehly much more as a person, and an owner. My defence of the ownership has always been rooted in a trust of Todd Boehly. I think at heart he’s a sports fan who intuitively understands what competitive sport is about. I also believe his experience in sports ownership, especially at the LA Dodgers where he’s been incredibly successful, and his respect for fans makes him a much better bet. He really embraces the fan experience and when he’s been around, he has engaged with Chelsea fans from day one.
He wants to win, but above all, he knows what it takes to win.
He was fully on board with the concept of signing the best youngsters from around the world, such as Kendry Paez and Estevao Willian, but judging by reports, he wanted to complement this with a few proven elite players in key positions, as he’s done at the Dodgers. He knows a spine of proven elite players are needed to have a winning team.
I also think he has a better understanding of how to use the academy. He fought to keep Levi Colwill in 2022, tried to keep Billy Gilmour and gave new contracts to Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah.
On top of this, it’s now been reported he has a thirty year plan for Chelsea, to make us sustainably successful at the top of the domestic and European game, and off the pitch - including the building of a new stadium.
On the other hand, my guess is Clearlake want to raise our value over 10-12 years then sell us off for profit. They still need us to be successful in order to do that, otherwise they’ll make a loss on our club, but still, there’s not as much commitment to the long term interests of the club.
Also to bust some myths. The summer 2022 window wasn’t “Todd’s window”, it was Thomas Tuchel’s window. He wanted most of the players we signed and Todd backed him. As said above, it was Todd who ensured Levi Colwill was loaned, rather than sold that summer.
Todd Boehly isn’t hands on, he hires best in class experts, then trusts those experts to make sporting decisions. He wanted to appoint Michael Edwards as our CEO of Football/Sporting Director. It’s now been reported too, he wants a single sporting director who has the final say on football matters, and Behdad was behind the dual sporting director idea, leaving them reporting to him.
So under Todd, we’d potentially, as I’ve been advocating for for two years, have one elite sporting director who makes the football decisions. Whoever this sporting director would be under his ownership, he would trust them to run the club and make decisions. He would be relatively “hands off”, though obviously more involved than he is currently, possibly in negotiations and commerical deals. He wants to win as his priority, but he is also a huge fan of patience and stability, as he said here:
“Winning is clearly the most important thing. So we’re focussed on winning. We have a young & exciting team that’s going to be together for a while.
If you look at teams that dominate for periods of time, it’s because they have stability.
Real stability in the team, real stability in the front office, real stability in the coaching.”
- Todd Boehly (Qatar Economic Forum 2023)
The hire fire culture would be over under Todd. It was reported by Ben Jacobs over the weekend that Todd had no desire to remove Pochettino. He felt keeping him would bring some stability and continuity, and we were making progress. The change was driven by Behdad Eghbali. There have been reports too, he was reluctant to let Graham Potter and even Thomas Tuchel leave at the times they did.
It’s very clear, if Todd were in control, there would no changing managers every season, and no constant undermining of the manager. He’d trust the coach, and trust those who hired the coach and give them time. He’d want a calm, stable, patient environment with a winning culture.
One other difference between Todd and Clearlake now appears to be the stadium rebuild. Todd sees this as a priority for the next decade and Chelsea’s long term success. Clearlake seems to be more skeptical about this and unable to make a decision. It appears this is one area, they can’t agree on and causing this conflict. I think again, Todd has the better vision here, the longer term vision, which will be better for the club in the long run - and he has experience building a new stadium with the Dodgers.
Having a singular owner is definitely preferential, because at least then you won’t get so many hold ups on big decisions, for better or worse. Clearlake will ultimately get out if they can get a big return on their investment or its not working. They aren’t in it for the long term, in my view. Todd, as we heard, has a 30 year plan.
My defence of the ownership on this site has always been predicated on my support and trust of Todd Boehly. It was Todds’ vision which won me over to this ownership group, long before Clearlake became involved. So I’m going to back him now.
So what will happen?
My own feeling is this - and this is only my opinion, nothing more. Clearlake isn’t just Behdad and Jose. The Clearlake investment has lots of stakeholders, whose main goal is to make money.
Todd is allegedly willing and able to pay £2.5 billion for the share they paid £1.5 billion for. So the investors will be getting a guaranteed £1 billion profit on their investment inside two years. The alternative is these investors sanctioning a further investment of £1.5 billion to buy the other shares, and there’s been no suggestion Clearlake are preparing any kind of bid for those shares, unlike Todd Boehly.
Todd Boehly and his people bought out investors after two years at the Dodgers to get more control, he seems to be doing it again. If one were cynical, one could posit he used the Clearlake money to get the club and build an infrastructure, and has always planned to buy their share to get full control.
My hunch is Clearlake are being publicly stubborn about not selling their shares to pressure Todd into making a ridiculous financial offer. Investors aren’t going to say no to a guaranteed £1 billion + profit inside two years, as opposed to the relative risk entailed in keeping shares in the club, given the lack of success on the field as yet. Its easy to say no when there’s no offer. Much tougher, when there’s a fat cheque on the table.
I think, ultimately, Todd makes them a huge offer, Clearlake investors tell Clearlake this is too good to refuse, and they, publicly reluctantly, end up selling. Behdad allegedly sees it as a passion project but won’t be able to hold off demands to make a 66% profit on the original investment. If he still wants to run a football club, he’ll have made enough profit and gained enough experience to buy one on his own down the line.
Of course I could be wrong and its Clearlake who win the battle and keep control. But even if they do, I’m certain they want to win. Behdad literally said two years ago:
“We think, frankly, winning, a good product on the pitch, and commercial success, go hand in hand. You have to have a good product to generate the sponsors, and for the content to work.”
“Michael Jordan got the ESPN special because Michael Jordan won. Ultimately, Luke Longley didn’t have a special during COVID, he’s a great player, but he didn’t.
You’ve got to win. Winning on the field, you have to do that to have commercial success.”
- Behdad Eghbali, 2022
So even if we end up in Clearlake’s hands, we’ll have owners obsessed with winning, and want a winning team on the pitch. They wouldn’t be my preference, but they’ve definitely got a vision for a winning Chelsea team.
Whichever owner we end up with, both want to make money. Roman was unique, and he’s gone. We don’t have a sugar daddy anymore, so to be successful now, Chelsea need to have high revenue streams and we need to be run well as a business. Ultimately I believe both Todd and Behdad are convinced that the more Chelsea win, the more on field success we have, the more money we (and they) make.
Whatever happens now, it will be messy, it will be lengthy, and it may get nasty. I hope not, to be honest. The club desperately needs some calm and stability and we’re not getting any for some time.
Let me finish with this. Whoever “wins” control of the club, the fans are owed a huge explanation and public apology at the end of it. Frankly, Chelsea fans have been through more than enough in the last 2-3 years and we deserve some public communication and acknowledgment of how tough its been for us, seeing such turmoil at our club.
Todd Boehly said once “Think about the fan” , and whoever ends up controlling Chelsea needs to do just that. Its’ simply non-negotiable at this point.
The Score
Agreed. Team Boehly. Someone make the t-shirts
Thanks a really good read. I think this needs to be sorted as soon as possible because the club will drift if not and that won’t end well. Money alone won’t bring success without understanding the club and football in general. Clearlake so far have shown very little if any so far.