Whichever way you look at it, it has been a change on an epic scale at Chelsea. In the playing group, the manager’s office and among those working at Stamford Bridge and the Cobham training ground, a lot has happened in the space of two years under new ownership.
The looming departures of Conor Gallagher and Trevoh Chalobah are the latest for a squad that developed under Roman Abramovich’s old regime. More than 40 players have left the first-team squad since the May 2022 takeover, excluding loans. But it hasn’t stopped there: under a restless new owner, eager to emulate his own on-field successes of the previous two decades, the club has endured a tumultuous transformation.
From managers and their assistants, to doctors, physiotherapists, football staff, at Cobham and beyond, to the commercial, finance and communications staff at Stamford Bridge – everyone agrees on one thing: Chelsea is very different. So much so that it’s easier to name those who didn’t go than those who did.
From groundsmen to masseurs, marketing managers to academy managers, even the HR specialists tasked with arranging redundancies – the people who led the Abramovich regime have been wiped out. On the playing side, there were four managers, including one caretaker, and all those players, many of them academy graduates who – like Gallagher, Chalobah and Armando Broja, all three set to leave – spent much of their youth at Chelsea.
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Each story was different, and not all the details of many of those who have left have fully emerged. Neil Bath, the cornerstone of Chelsea’s academy for so many years, and the club’s old sage who preceded Abramovich, had a broader role at Cobham when he announced his departure last month. That was due to the departure of his friend Jimmy Fraser, who left his role as Bath’s successor as academy director.
On the other end of the spectrum, a number of people brought in by the new owner since May 2022 have since left, including chief technical officer Christopher Vivell and company president Tom Glick.
What’s going on? The ownership consortium is at the centre, and in particular Behdad Eghbali. He’s the California private equity billionaire who controls the Clearlake Capital fund, which in turn controls 62 per cent of the club. Eghbali and his Clearlake partner Jose E Feliciano have a 50-50 share in decisions with consortium co-head, American investor Todd Boehly. Every decision needs all of their signatures. Yet insiders agree that it’s Eghbali’s presence that is most felt at the club.
‘Chelsea are in a race to catch up’
What’s going on? The ownership consortium is at the centre, and in particular Behdad Eghbali. He’s the private equity billionaire from California who controls the Clearlake Capital fund, which in turn controls 62 percent of the club. Eghbali and his fellow consortium head, American investor Todd Boehly, have a 50-50 say in decisions and both need their signatures. Yet insiders agree that it’s Eghbali’s presence that is most felt at the club.
Eghbali believes Chelsea are fast catching up and that building a club will inevitably involve casualties. Abramovich sacked his managers regularly, but Chelsea changed relatively little. Among the now sanctioned top Russian advisers, Marina Granovskaia, his former PA, became the main power broker. Abramovich’s long-time New York lawyer Bruce Buck was chairman. In addition, there were Chelsea employees who had been there for decades.
Eghbali’s opinion is considered less than complimentary in this regard: that the club was run more like a family business. To the extent that more than one generation of a family was employed in at least one department. That is certainly no longer the case, as the winds of change are blowing through the club.
For others who have worked there, the pace of change is simply too dizzying. The speed at which decisions are made about the suitability of new employees is too fast. Some say the owners are too prone to chasing the latest, shiny, new thing, whether that’s a new player or a director at a rival club. They also point out that for all the eagerness of private equity money to create a company in line with its own corporate ideals, Chelsea once won trophies.
One thing is clear, the Eghbali way is not going to change. Employees who are not a good fit for him are quickly moved on. He tells those around him that it is better to admit a mistake has been made than to struggle with those who are not a good fit.
For Vivell, now at Manchester United, the seven months he spent at RB Leipzig will not have been enough. Glick arrived from Manchester City in June 2022 and left the following November. That first summer of the new regime, when Boehly was interim technical director, did not produce the successful new squad that was intended. Defender Kalidou Koulibaly lasted a year before being sent to Saudi Arabia. The club are now said to be listening to offers for Raheem Sterling and Noni Madueke.
That’s before we get to the managers: Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter, the ill-fated Frank Lampard interim and then Mauricio Pochettino’s one and only season. What hasn’t changed are the co-sporting directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, who have expanded their roles since their appointments in late 2022. They have Eghbali’s absolute confidence. Despite being outside Chelsea’s inner circle, the jury is still out on both.
No love for the previous regime
There is no love lost between the Eghbali-Boehly regime and the one that came before it. It starts with the self-reported financial problems under the Abramovich regime – not yet fully disclosed – which are currently under investigation by the Premier League and have been the subject of a settlement with UEFA. But it goes further. The new owners see faults everywhere with the club they inherited. From the shortcomings in digital and licensing revenue, to the reason why Chelsea’s academy players needed extensive loans to prepare for the senior team, while Manchester City’s youngsters are primed for the Premier League.
Either way, there have now been four managers, one disastrous 12th-placed Premier League finish and last season’s sixth. There will be no hiding place for the Eghbali-Boehly consortium in 2024-25. Key figures there say they have learned from their mistakes. Fellow underachievers Manchester United, also under new leadership, have stuck with their manager. Eghbali-Boehly has changed again with Enzo Maresca.
The club’s profitability and sustainability appear to have been achieved through the sale of hotels and the women’s team within the group, much to the chagrin of rivals. The club has sold academy graduates to balance its huge transfer spending. Its wage bill has been slashed. Yet the unique challenge the Premier League presents goes beyond hiring executives and recruiting experts. But if that were the only thing that titles were available, Chelsea would be in the running.
Manchester City’s Joe Shields and Brighton’s Sam Jewell make up the rest of Eghbali’s recruitment and academy inner circle. New chief executive Chris Jurasek has arrived from the US, as has chief operating officer Jason Gannon, who worked at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. There are new chief revenue and marketing officers, and more British-based American football managers are on the way. United’s chief executive of digital Phil Lynch is handing in his notice at Old Trafford, as is Tottenham Hotspur’s chief commercial officer Todd Kline.
Culture clash in the club
As for those who have left, it would be fair to say that the medical department has changed beyond recognition, starting with director Paco Biosca and including almost all the physiotherapists. Dissatisfaction with the state of the Stamford Bridge pitch resulted in the departure of the club’s long-serving head groundsman, Jason Griffin, after 34 years. He was replaced by Paul Burgess, now the club’s director of global sports services and landscaping, who previously worked with Stewart at Real Madrid and then Monaco.
The club’s facilities director, Paul Kingsmore, a key figure in ensuring Chelsea adhered to Covid-19 rules, has left. So has Joanne Stone, the club’s human resources director. Head of global merchandise Richard Milham is expected to leave after 27 years. Simon Hunter, who ran Stamford Bridge’s matchday commercial operations for 21 years, is also expected to leave.
In the communications department, Steve Atkins and Adrian Phillips, who both worked with a series of Abramovich managers for more than 10 years, have both left. Toby Craig, who was recruited by Glick after the City takeover, has also left. He now holds a similar role at United
The survivors? David Barnard, the club secretary, a key administrative role, joined the club in 2002, before the Abramovich takeover. Chief Financial Officer Paul Ramos remains in his post, although there is a new chief financial officer. The club’s general counsel, James Bonington, is expected to take on an expanded role.
We can only hope that someone in the new executive line-up has an answer to what is perhaps the most difficult question facing Chelsea: the future of Stamford Bridge. No announcements have been made.
As for the homegrown players in the first team, the owner has backed Reece James and Levi Colwill with new deals, but they could be the last two by the end of the transfer window. Still, the squad is currently huge: 53, including the four on loan.
At the very least, it was a culture clash: the frenetic, disruptive tech-business creed of 2020s America meets a football club made successful by a mysterious billionaire and his inner circle. Eghbali and Boehly’s Chelsea claim to be a far cry from the Abramovich regime. And while they may mirror the personalities of their super-rich owners, they’re more alike than they think.
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