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Private equity firms Clearlake and Boehly’s approach to running Chelsea has been met with a mix of admiration, consternation and bemusement from within the football industry.
After acquiring the west London club for £2bn last summer, their first two transfer windows saw them spend ‘scattergun’ – at least from the outside perspective – in bringing in more than £230m worth of players on long-term contracts.
But inside Stamford Bridge there is an acknowledgement that the process to fill the roles left vacant by Granovskaia and Cech had to be given time and not hastily rushed through.
Those working at rival clubs have been favourable in their appraisal of Chelsea’s transfers, praising the ambition behind a strategy that looks to future-proof the club both in terms of safeguarding assets alongside bolstering performance.
Shakhtar Donetsk CEO Sergei Palkin certainly saw evidence of this during his negotiations with commercial director Omar Eghbali in Antalya over a €100 million move for Anatoliy Mudryk which ultimately went to Chelsea instead of Arsenal.
Having spent many hours with Eghbali it became clear just how ambitious this project was intended to be; he firmly believes they will build one of the world’s best clubs if you look at wider objectives such investing heavily across various channels such as sports science, stadium facilities and commercial sectors.
The decision for such long-term contracts makes sense when understanding both potential rewards and downsides, though private equity specialists contacted by The Athletic raised doubts about its suitability for football investments like these but recognise why such an approach has been taken,. 7 or 8 year deals would make selling on players easier due to lower base salaries if needed but beyond that it also offers security earnings should injury come into play; here it could become a negative factor if performances are not up to par.
Time will tell whether this will work out well or fall flat on its face; positivity remains high amongst those associated with Chelsea currently but caution should be caution should still remain part given we’ve never seen such investment strategy implemented before on this scale–grow big whilst anticipating early exits either one too three years down line sooner later should results disappoint after quickly (hopefully) scaling up.
This article was updated 3 weeks ago
