Boehly v Eghbali: Their visions of football structure & recruitment at Chelsea

They have different perspectives...

The drama around the ownership of Chelsea is not abating. New news keeps coming out each day. I was listening to a space with former SPTC contributor, the excellent Ben Jacobs, the other day, where he was talking about the ownership and their different roles and understanding of where the conflict lies between Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, and it made interesting reading, given some of the things I’ve been writing about in the last two years.

Ben stated that Todd Boehly would ideally have liked to have hired a CEO of Football, Michael Edwards-type figure to run the football side. Todd would have then let whoever that person was run the football side, handle negotiations, with a sporting director working beneath them. This CEO of Football would then have the final say on football matters. Todd would be kept in the loop, but the decisions would be left to football people.

On the other hand, Behdad Eghbali on behalf of Clearlake, believes he needs to be very hands-on in the day to day running of the club, with two sporting directors reporting directly to him. He also made clear he’s very involved in transfer negotiations and drives a lot of the final recruitment decisions - much like Roman Abramovich used to be. Sporting directors seem to act on his behalf a lot of the time.

I’ve written countless articles on this site in the last two years about how we need an elite Director of Football/CEO of Football type figure who makes the big decisions on football and has the final say. I’ve mentioned names like Oliver Mintzlaff, who works in the Red Bull group, and Michael Edwards, before he rejoined Liverpool.

It seems Todd has felt this is how it should be operating all along. It’s another reason I believe he is the right man to assume control of the club. Because we’d get elite football people making the final football decisions, which is what happens at Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal, three of the best football teams in the country.

Todd has had this approach at the Dodgers, where he’s not involved day to day and leaves the experts running the sporting side to make those decisions. Obviously he’s involved in some negotiations and informed on recruitment, but the decisions are made by experts. He wants to have this same approach at Chelsea.

Todd appears to recognise he’s not an expert in football or any sport, and wants decisions to be made by experts. Whereas Behdad, who has no history in football, no history of sports ownership, seems to think only he knows what the right decision is on the football side and football strategy.

Well Behdad, if you’re reading, let me tell you, you don’t. You might be hugely successful businessman, and full credit where its due. But that doesn’t make you an expert in football.

If Behdad understood football, he’d understand that every team which wins trophies consistently has proven elite players and leaders through the spine of the team. This is just known. It’s so well known, you don’t even need to be an elite sporting director to know this. Just look at pretty much every team who’s won the big trophies in the last 20 years.

Signing a ton of the best young talent in the world is absolutely fine, and I absolutely support that (as does Todd Boehly, for the record). But you need leaders and established elite players through the spine to ensure success whilst the young players develop. This can literally be 4-5 players at most, the other 20-21 in the squad can be young players who fit with the bigger strategy.

Again, Ben Jacobs stated on a live call the other day, how Todd felt we needed those kind of players in order to get us successful immediately, whilst the young players all developed around them. Something, again, myself and others have been calling for for a long time.

Bottom line, Clearlake wants to keep things as they are and keep on the current path, the one we’ve been on pretty much since January 2023. Signing top young talents, not signing experience, and seeing them eventually become an elite winning team, over the long term.

Todd believes there are issues with the football structure and areas of recruitment strategy which need changing, and wants to get moving with the stadium more quickly. He wants players who can deliver some success whilst this young team is developing and get us competing relatively quickly whilst the young talent matures.

That’s the choice we’re dealing with, and ultimately, Chelsea fans have no direct say on this. We don’t decide who owns us. All we can do it's make our views known online and at matches, and maybe it's time we did that.

The people at the top need to hear what we think. Ultimately we’ve been here our whole lives, we have to stand up for our club and its future. We have a right to let these people know, in a respectful, diplomatic and peaceful way, how we feel about our clubs future.

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