Why Todd Boehly's recent comments can give us confidence for the future

Again, he's showing he has big ambitions

On Wednesday night, some comments about Chelsea from Chairman and co-owner Todd Boehly at the Sportico “Invest in Sports” event broke online. As many know, I and others have been calling for more communication from the owners, and whilst this still wasn’t the direct interview many of us still want, it was something more positive and directly Chelsea related.

Some of these comments were really insightful, so I thought I’d share them and unpack them.

First up, let's look at his comments on our recent form:

“We’ve seen the last two and a half games, at least in the second half at Aston Villa (2-2 draw) and Tottenham (2-0 win) and West Ham (5-0 win) where we played just beautiful football.

It was so fluid, it was exactly the way we drew it up, when we came out of the back, built up and moved up the pitch, (it was) very organised and the number of shots we had on board. In those two and a half games, you could really start to see what we were working on coming together.”

Todd Boehly

Now at a time where there’s said to be some internal pressure on head coach Mauricio Pochettino to qualify for the Europa League, and his position, these comments will surely give him a boost.

This is a clear vote of confidence in Pochettino from Boehly, who is known to be a fan of stability and patience at head coach level. He wanted to give Graham Potter more time last season, and allegedly prevented others from sacking Pochettino back in February.

His voice will be very influential in the final decision on Pochettino’s future, so if he is feelings this, and the form continues, that could help keep Pochettino in a job come the end of the season.

I’ve always felt Todd Boehly is a long term vision, big picture guy, and has patience. He doesn’t look at results in isolation or just to the present, he looks at the long term results of a process of putting the right people in place in the club structure, and on the playing staff. He’s got history in sports and his first two years at the Dodgers were difficult. He wants to see progress towards that, and he believes he is seeing it.

There were also these comments about the brand and a certain player of the year.

“The fan fests that the Premier League do from city to city, you see them, it only builds momentum. Hopefully, Cole Palmer will become a household name (here in the US) soon. He’s been a phenomenon for us and so we’re thinking hard about how we continue to expand our brand in the United States. That’s ultimately a priority as well.”

Todd Boehly

From this, its pretty clear they are going to make Cole Palmer their “franchise player” and the face of the club and the project, certainly for the foreseeable future. It’s also a positive they recognise just how good he is, and news they want to increase his salary too shows he’s set to be a big part of the long term future of Chelsea - as he should be.

This brings me to some other key comments, about his ambition and goals at Chelsea, both commercial and on the pitch:

“In order to compete, you have to have growing revenue. And I think a brand like Chelsea really allows for that.

Growing that brand, especially globally, is predicated on winning. I think that winning is at the top of the things that’s most important.”

Todd Boehly

This is really significant. There’s been a lot of doom mongering, people saying the owners don’t care about on pitch success or winning trophies. I’ve said all along the owners want to win. Yes they want to make money, but the way they make the most money is by Chelsea being successful on the pitch.

Playing regular Champions League football, winning trophies regularly and challenging every single season has a knock on effect. It means we get money from CL (about £70m plus every year), plus extra TV revenue, more PL money for higher finishes, and can get more and bigger commercial deals to increase revenue. This means we can invest more in the team (mens and womens) to continue the success.

All of the above makes Chelsea financially stronger and increases the value of the club, and thus, the value of the owners’ investment. This makes them individually hundreds of millions, potentially billions, and means we’ll be well compliant with all financial rules, and don't need to continue to sell players for pure profit, or sell to buy. We still will sell players of course, all clubs do, but it won’t have the same urgency, and that money will just be a bonus on top of the other revenue.

Chelsea will essentially be financially self-sufficient, without the need for a sugar daddy to fund our success.

Winning is in everyone’s best interests. Todd Boehly has won trophies and had on pitch success with every sports team he’s invested in. He’s a winner. He might still be learning football, but he wants to win, and has experience of winning. My hunch is he’ll get it right eventually.

These comments give me a lot of confidence in the future. Todd has a long term approach but his ambition is to make Chelsea consistently and sustainably successful, playing regular CL football and winning the big trophies. You might question his plan to achieve this, but the ambition is not in doubt.

People say Todd’s not as involved day to day, but that’s generally as he trusts experts to run his investments. In this case, the sporting directors, scouts and head coach. It doesn’t mean he’s not involved, or interested, or paying attention to what’s going on.

He still has to sign off on all big decisions, in terms of voting rights, its’ all equal. His comments show he is still very aware and paying attention to what’s going on and cares about it. He even suggested at this event, he is friends with Kalidou Koulibaly, even though he no longer plays for Chelsea, so his passion and interest in football is still there.

Matt Law reported a while back Todd Boehly has a 20 year vision for his investment at Chelsea. So whatever happens with Clearlake, Todd looks like being around for a while. I personally think this is a good thing for Chelsea. Todd, more than any of the co-owners, knows the sport world, has had success in it. He wants to win and has done it before.

This might get me in trouble, or called ridiculous. But I still believe Todd being there can give us a lot more confidence Chelsea will, eventually, get back to where we should be - at the top.

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