May marked one year since Chelsea was run by a consortium of American businessmen led by Todd Boely. It was a period of upheaval for the club: large-scale purchases, two changes of coaches and unsatisfactory results. As a result, for the first time since the 2016/17 season, Chelsea were left without European competition. Boeli has already received a dose of criticism for what is happening at the club – the fans do not understand the strategy of the new owners.
Roman Abramovich, who owned Chelsea from 2003 to 2022, was also often criticized – the club was called a “money bag”, and the Russian businessman was accused of being too emotional when making important decisions. “Vedomosti. Sport” studied in detail how both owners started their journey at Chelsea.
Transfer strategy
Since the arrival of Boeli & Co., Chelsea have blown up the transfer market twice: in the summer of 2022, spending almost £260m, the most in Europe, and in the winter of 2022/23, they increased spending by another 24%. A total of £579.5m was spent on new players, which bloated the squad so much that, according to the British media, there was not enough room for all the players in the dressing room at the base. It also created a challenge for former head coach Graham Potter, who couldn’t find a good combination of many great and even famous players (see table #1).
In the first season under Abramovich, the players were selected wiser. During the summer of 2003, 10 new players joined the team for a total of 139.68 million pounds. Chelsea have bought young, up-and-coming Britons and stars from other European clubs, such as Argentine Hernan Crespo from Inter, French Claude Makele from Real Madrid and Romanian Adrian Mutu from Parma. Experts were surprised that in just a few weeks at the head of the club, Abramovich managed to completely reassemble the team. In the winter, only Scott Parker joined the squad – he became the 11th player in the first buying season, finishing the total check to 153 million pounds. True, if we recalculate the transfer amounts taking into account football inflation, then Abramovich spent even more than his successor (see table No. 2).
“In the summer of 2003, when Abramovich had just bought the club, there were a lot of expenses,” says Vedomosti. Sport” insider and close to Chelsea journalist The Athletic Dom Fifield. “But he initially supported his manager, Claudio Ranieri, and spent that first season figuring out the best way to get Chelsea ahead. But Boeli and his management team quickly concluded that they could not work with Thomas Tuchel and decided to go the other way. This time it’s more confusing in terms of strategy – a strange mix of wanting to get things done quickly to stay competitive while also planning for the future.”
The transfer of Scott Parker in the winter of 2004 was the second most expensive transfer of that season in the English Premier League (EPL) – 12.6 million pounds. In Europe, the leader was David Beckham, who moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid for 33.7 million pounds, which, taking into account the football inflation index, equates to the current 141.77 million pounds. £33m was a lot of money for the Premier League at the time: there were only six transfers between £5m and £10m in the entire league, the rest cost less. Now it’s even hard to imagine – in the 2022/23 season, the Premier League clubs spent almost 3 billion pounds on transfers in total.
An important difference of the Chelsea signing campaign under Boel is that the club enters into long contracts for 5-8 years, thus amortizing transfer costs for the entire duration of the agreement. Many large clubs resort to a similar payment distribution scheme (including Juventus are now being punished for this), but such a duration of contracts for European football (and sports in general) is not typical – but it is typical for American professional leagues.
15 penalty points is definitely minus the Champions League 2023/24 and about 80 million euros
“The approach of the American Boely in English football clashes with the conservative views of the British, for whom football is primarily a sport with an established development model,” explains Vedomosti. Sport” Aleksey Kylasov, Professor of the Department of Sports Management and Active Leisure of the Russian University of Economics. G. V. Plekhanov. “For Americans, sport has always been a kind of star-filled show, which is why Boely immediately offered to bet on stars and spent 282 million euros on new players, setting a world record for spending in a single transfer window.”
Boeli sees the marketing potential of the club only in the players, Kylasov believes. “The coach is secondary for him, he is a performer, so Tuchel, who did not share his views, was fired,” adds the professor. “Following the American sports show tradition, Boely proposed a North-South all-star match in English football and a Final Four for the worst clubs in the league. But it’s hard to believe that the British will buy into these overseas initiatives of a man who behaves more like a business coach than a real manager of an English club.
Coaches on the way out
Taking over at the helm of Chelsea, Boeli said he plans to end the coaching mess that has characterized the Abramovich era. Over the entire period that the Russian businessman managed the club, 12 coaches were replaced, only Mourinho worked for more than three years – in his first period, when Abramovich mastered English football.
Many appointments and reshuffles had to be paid for: first, in order to “buy out” the coach at another club, then, in order to pay him compensation for the early termination of the contract, because few people worked out their agreement to the end. So, Porto received 6 million pounds for Mourinho, and the specialist himself, after leaving Chelsea in 2007, received 18 million. At that time, it was the second line in the ranking of the largest coaching compensation. Brazilian Luiz Filipe Scolari lasted just seven months, falling out with many players, and was paid £12.6m over the remaining two years of his contract. The Italian Carlo Ancelotti got Chelsea for free, but Abramovich still had to pay for parting with the coach – 6 million pounds.
Chelsea shelled out £13.3m to take Portugal’s André Villas-Boas from Porto just after three titles in a season (Portuguese League, Portuguese Cup and Europa League). But in London, the coach did not work out, and eight months of not the most successful team management wrote off another 12 million pounds from the club’s balance sheet. During the season, Villas-Boas was replaced by his assistant – Italian Roberto Di Matteo – and won the 2011/12 Champions League with Chelsea. Initially, the interim manager received a two-year contract, but it was not possible to finalize the agreement – Abramovich sacked Di Matteo when Chelsea lost several important matches the following season. Eight months at the club and Di Matteo walked away with £10.7m in early termination compensation.
Mourinho, on his second visit to the club, first took the title, and the next season fell to the bottom of the table, and Abramovich did not give the coach time – he paid 8.3 million pounds and said goodbye. But most of all, the Italian Antonio Conte received from the club: he received his compensation for dismissal after public criticism of the team through the court, where he applied, demanding payments from Chelsea to himself and the coaching staff.
During the Abramovich era, at least £121.1m was spent on managerial resignations – and that’s just the data that got into the media. In reality, the amount can be much higher.
Boeli wanted to work differently and in one of the first public appearances in the new status, he said that Thomas Tuchel had full credit of trust, and the owner had a great desire to become the first coach since 2007 who would stay at the club for at least three years . But a few months later, Tuchel, who won the 2020/21 Champions League with Chelsea, was sacked in one day. “It was a shock,” the German coach told reporters at a press conference. The meeting lasted only 3-5 minutes at eight in the morning. We all thought we were on the right track and we had more time to build something.” Boeli, on the other hand, turned out to be of a different opinion: he considered that their views differ from Tuchel, and therefore the paths cannot cross.
The new owner began with the same thing that Abramovich abused – with compensation for early dismissal. Tuchel received 15 million pounds.
Briton Graham Potter was chosen to replace him, paying Brighton £22m. The coach received a top contract for 60 million pounds in five years and the confidence that players would be selected for his concept and allowed to work in peace. But just seven months later, Potter had to vacate his job due to unsatisfactory results (Chelsea were 11th in the Premier League), and Boely had to write a check for 13 million pounds.
The search for a new head coach continues, and most likely it will be the Argentinean Mauricio Pochettino, who worked at Tottenham, PSG and others. Until the end of the season, the team is led by and. O. Frank Lampard is the club’s legendary former midfielder who has already dabbled in the role of Chelsea head coach. In the current championship, the team has nothing to lose: a place in the second half of the standings means that in the 2023/24 season, Chelsea will not play in European competition for the first time in seven years. It is difficult not to compare this result with the one achieved by the club in the first year under Abramovich – silver in the Premier League.
“For 20 years, Abramovich has made Chelsea one of the best in Europe, and now the club is falling apart,” sums up for Vedomosti. Sport” ex-player of “Chelsea” Alexey Smertin. – I know Abramovich for one season, but I liked his managerial approach and trust in Mourinho. There was an unspoken agreement to separate the front office and the back office, i.e., the management and coaching staff. There was one boss in the dressing room, and that’s how it should be. Abramovich went into the dressing room to congratulate the team, but he did it not as an owner, but as a manager who watches the atmosphere. I really liked the separation of their powers, but together they were an alliance.”