Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali aren’t talking to each other, and they want the world to know. The relationship between Chelsea’s billionaire co-chairman – and the brains behind paying up to £89m for Mykhailo Mudryk – is reportedly still “professional”, but also “untenable”, “irreconcilable” and “broken”.
In short, the ownership consortium cobbled together by opportunity and united solely by a shared desire to own a football team and make unimaginable profits have discovered they really don’t have anything else in common. Especially not how to run said football team and make it unimaginably profitable. Spoiler alert: this is a problem!
The ideal solution for both Boehly and Eghbali would be to buy the other’s stake out. Each has a grand yet fundamentally different long-term vision they believe cannot be realised while trapped in this doomed marriage of financial convenience. The expansion of Stamford Bridge is a particularly contentious point, with Boehly desperate for commercial progress.
So get ready to learn what a hostile takeover is, be taught the historic business strategies of otherwise faceless billionaires, and for it to take an incredibly long time. Apologies to the fan who posted on X that “it’ll be fine so long as this is over by next Friday” – this is unlikely to be quick or painless.
Clearlake Capital, the investment firm run by Eghbali and business partner Jose E Feliciano, have been clear they will not be selling their 61.5 per cent stake in Chelsea under any circumstances.
Boehly appears more open to losing his stake, but would really rather not. He owns a third of the remaining 38.5 per cent alongside equal partners Hansjorg Wyss and Mark Walter. Splitting up that share is not an option, neither is selling to a third party. Boehly believes he can pull together £2.5bn of investment to make Clearlake an offer they theoretically couldn’t refuse.
Through a mishmash of poor timing, poorer decisions and The Truth, Eghbali’s perception among Chelsea fans appears generally more positive than Boehly’s. The latter’s self-appointment as sporting director was damaging, chaotic and expensive, while his demand for a Premier League All-Star match made it easy to tar him with American stereotypes.
He has since stepped away from the spotlight, while Eghbali began travelling home and away with the team and fostered a reputation as the driving force behind the push for youth which has meant Chelsea are yet to start a player over 26 this season.
He also led the “mutual” defenestration of Mauricio Pochettino, which Boehly reportedly disagreed with, and has the closest relationship with co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. Eghbali would much rather be personally involved every day, while Boehly, perhaps unsurprisingly given his track record, prefers to appoint experts and leave them to it.
Yet the primary short-term concern here is how ownership uncertainty will impact the inexperienced manager, players and executive staff.
Can Enzo Maresca, just over three months into his first senior Premier League job, handle this as diplomatically as Thomas Tuchel navigated Roman Abramovich’s sanctions and exit? How will it affect the development and mindset of this impressionable and impossibly valuable amalgam of unrealised potential?
Will it lead to yet more changes of commercial staff after a new club president was appointed on Wednesday? What happens with transfers if this continues well into 2025, which it likely will? How does it impact the club’s value, likely to be central to the impending negotiations/corporate strongarming?
In the long term – anything from two to 200 years – sole or united ownership can only be positive. Whether you’re Team Todd or Team Behdad, there has to be an understanding that either is better than both. One common thread across every successful top-flight club in Europe is clearly defined and unified power dynamics in management and ownership.
Every major decision at Chelsea currently must be signed off by Boehly, Eghbali and Feliciano, causing a disordered transfer and management policy executed by people who disagree on almost everything except the desire to make money.
There are pros and cons to both parties’ approaches to running a football club, but neither’s downsides are as damaging as the ones Chelsea are now enduring. You can understand a huge proportion of the club’s recent decisions by realising they were made by people pulling in opposite directions.
So once more unto the breach, dear business partners of convenience, once more. Expect more change, more chaos, more uncertainty, but unlike the change, chaos and uncertainty of the past two years, stability and success are a feasible result. This might actually work.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/RcXCIQZ
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