This week Sir Jim Ratcliffe completed his partial takeover of Manchester United. Ratcliffe, you’ll remember, made a last gasp bid to buy Chelsea back in 2022, going outside the process so having his bid rejected. If he’d gone via the process everyone else did, there’s a good chance he’d have made the final shortlist, in my view.
Within 24 hours of Ratcliffe taking over, he’d done a 30 minute interview with the club channel and with the BBC. In this interview he outlined his vision, his ambitions, his goals, and addressed issues around the stadium, transfers and even the manager.
Watching it I felt jealous, and then angry.
He’d communicated more directly with his clubs fans within 24 hours of being part-owner, than our owners have done in 20 months of ownership. Our owners who we were told would be better communicators than Roman Abramovich. Technically they have been, via press briefings, club statements and video panel interviews, but that’s not really saying much given Abramovich gave two interviews in 19 years.
Now let’s be clear, this is NOT a comment on Ratcliffe as a football club owner. No one has any clue how well he will do as Manchester United co-owner. He could do an awful job, then this would be just empty words.
It’s also not a comment on our owners. I see the bigger picture with regards Clearlake/Todd Boehly, the vision they have for our club and the multi-club model. I’ve explained it in detail in many articles on this site, and in large part I fully support it. I believe its’ bold, its’ long term, its’ sustainable and I believe it can and will work. Even recently, the new hires to our staff and structure have been pretty impressive.
However, I’ve said almost since the takeover the fans deserve proper communication. A proper up front interview with the club channel (or BBC if they like), sharing their vision and ambitions for the club, the basic strategy they adopted, the bigger vision for multi-club, and reassuring concerned fans - maybe also apologising for the mis-steps made so far.
It has baffled me this hasn’t been done in one sense. I know a lot of fans would appreciate it a lot and have more patience with the owners if they communicated like this, authentically, not in a PR tone (fans aren’t dumb, we know PR when we see it), even if it was done only once a season.
I guess the clubs view might be that whatever they say publicly, some people, including the British media, will dissect it and twist it to suit an agenda, and to mock them. I can scarcely disagree with that diagnosis sadly. Its’ one thing a British billionaire buying the establishment English club. Americans buying a hated club like Chelsea, isn’t going to go down so well with British ‘establishment’ sadly.
However, one option would be for an interview to be recorded, shown to some fans, edited so it can’t confuse people to remove any ‘controversial’ moments, and then shown? Maybe have Daniel Finkelstein and/or Barbara Charone on hand, or as part of a group interview, people familiar with the British media and real Chelsea fans? Daniel in particular I think would be brilliant for this given one of his roles is fan outreach.
I think its’ entirely possible to do. A big opportunity to do it would have been this week, in the build up to the owners first cup final. If we win, it gives an even bigger opportunity at the end of the season to talk to the fans about how its’ going.
Or there’s the possibility to do a written interview with a reputable journalist like David Ornstein, or even with a reputable Chelsea website / podcast (*like this one, maybe), to connect with real Chelsea fans.
I just know, and I think I speak for a lot of fans, that some communication from the owners about their ambition, vision and strategy for the club, and acknowledgment of mistakes made, would go a long way. It would help build relationships and trust with a lot of fans and possibly buy the ownership some time.
I understand the owners vision and I believe in it fully, but better communication would make such a big difference, in my view.
*Note from Simon - I have asked a couple of the board members to join us on our Podcast one more than one occasion, but yet to get any bites.
The Score
We can, but hope, but let’s be honest in reality, how many owners really communicate with the fans. This is not a Chelsea problem in isolation, it’s a problem throughout the Premier League and beyond
I think it's a bit of a double-edged sword, though. On one hand, it's nice that he did an interview and outlined his thoughts. But now he has to go out and deliver on the promises that he's just made. If he fails to do so, he'll probably get absolutely hammered by the fans and the media down the road for all of this.
Sometimes in the world of business, it's actually better to keep your thoughts and plans out of the public because if there's one giant no-no in that world, it's promising to deliver something in a time-frame and then failing to actually do so. That can do far more damage to a club/company reputation than staying silent on the matter and waiting to make a statement when the product you're planning to deliver is ready.