Todd Boehly and Clearlake make big change behind the scenes at Chelsea after '£60m' blunder
01/28/2025 02:15 AM
Football finance has seen many innovators with bold ideas to shake up the game but arguably none whose strategy has been as aggressive and high-tariff as Chelsea’s Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital.
When Chelsea changed hands in May 2022, it marked the end of an era in a several ways. For one, it saw Roman Abramovich – once English football’s biggest disruptor – leave Stamford Bridge for good.
Abramovich helped deliver five Premier League and two Champions League titles before he was forced to sell the club following UK government sanctions related to his links to the Russian state.
The circumstances of his exit and his blank cheque approach to running the club means his legacy will always be mixed outside of SW6, where it is safe to say he is still adored.
However, his departure also perhaps signposted the end of the ‘vanity project’ and a new age of ownership in Premier League history.
Abramovich never wanted a return on his investment in West London. Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali – titans in the capital growth-obsessed private equity sector – most certainly do.
How they will get there isn’t exactly clear. Broadly speaking, a club owner can only make money by either A) taking a dividend B) loaning the club money and recouping interest or C) selling it on for a profit.
Profitability is a distant aim for Chelsea, whose losses in the last financial year alone totalled £90m. That means the dividend route isn’t viable. Even when it is, it won’t give them a return on investment.
The loans route isn’t their style either, so process of elimination suggests the aim is to one day flip the club for a profit on the £2.5bn the Clearlake-led consortium paid two-and-a-half years ago.
A quick survey of the Premier League’s broader landscape – where private equity firms have bought into Manchester City, Aston Villa and Liverpool with a capital growth plan – hammers the point home here.
The specifics of BlueCo’s masterplan to hike the value of the club and demonstrate long-term profitability to a would-be buyer further down the line aren’t clear.
Their approach to recruitment and retention shows they are, to put it mildly, thinking outside the box.
Yes, they have spent over £1bn on new signings, with only a handful working out to date but the charitable view is that there is method behind the madness.
The club thinks an incentive-based contract structure will protect them financially in the long term, while ultra-long contracts lock in player value and shields the club from wage inflation across the game.
They have somehow managed to circumvent Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) so far too. And although their methods are widely seen as going against the spirit of the system, they have been effective.
But one element of the owners’ strategy that is making very little sense is in the commercial department.
For the second season running, Chelsea started 2024-25 without a front-of-shirt sponsor. Unlike last season, however, the Blues still haven’t addressed the problem.
- READ MORE: Chelsea will be 'absolutely delighted' after securing '£100m discount' thanks to Roman Abramovich
Chelsea missing out on up to £60m in commercial revenue, says finance expert
Earlier this month, it was circulated that Chelsea were nearing an agreement for a front-of-shirt deal.
TBR Football understands that, as has been reported elsewhere, Chelsea have held talks with several airlines including Riyadh Air, Turkish Airlines and Qatar Airways.
But the status of those talks is not known and, with Enzo Maresca’s side well over halfway into the season, the value of a potential shirt deal has sunk like a stone.
What’s more, their sleeve sponsorship deal with Fever has also collapsed, leaving two of their three biggest sponsorship categories unfilled.
That’s a big deal for Chelsea, who don’t have much PSR leeway and whose owners have a reputation as commercial soothsayers to uphold.
As explained exclusively to TBR Football by Liverpool University football finance lecture Kieran Maguire: “For an elite club such as Chelsea, you’re looking at £50-60m in a good year from front-of-shirt.
“That is almost as much as you are generating from your ticket sales. You can’t afford to forego that.
“Chelsea have a broader issue in terms of ticket sales because of the relatively small capacity of Stamford Bridge, so that enhances the importance of commercial deals.
“You have clubs such as Manchester City who generated 50 per cent of their revenue from commercial deals.
“Front-of-shirt deals are effectively movable banner adverts for companies and they are a huge part of that overarching commercial strategy.
“Many observers have been scratching their heads about how they have managed to stay within the parameters of PSR while having taken such a significant financial hit.
“They aren’t going to sell many more shirts this year because the two most significant sales periods are after launch and then at Christmas. Both of those have now passed.
“They have to get this right in future. It’s left a lot of people questioning the wisdom of the commercial strategy.”
Nike unhappy with Chelsea over sponsorship situation
Reportedly, Chelsea kit manufacturer Nike are dissatisfied with the club’s failure to secure a front-of-shirt deal, which they believe has impacted sale.
With the Blues believed to be competing to be the next club to get Nike’s Air Jordan treatment – which Paris Saint-Germain have proven to be extraordinarily lucrative – that could be a problem.
It probably won’t be a dealbreaker for the US sportswear giants, but it also can’t count in the Blues’ favour.
Why haven’t Chelsea got a front-of-shirt partner yet?
There are several hypotheses as to why Chelsea haven’t signed a shirt deal yet, with the most simple being that no party has met their reserve price yet.
Alternatively, the price might have been met but the right profile of company not found, with new chief commercial officer Todd Kline having only been in situ for a few weeks after his move from Tottenham.
Chelsea have found out to their cost about the risks of partnering with the wrong brand in Fever and WhaleFin in recent season, so they will be keen to avoid being burnt again.
With an independent tribunal set to make its final ruling on Man City’s challenge to the Premier League’s Associated Party Transaction (APR) Rules later this week, Chelsea may also have spied an opportunity.
The APT rules govern commercial arrangements that clubs strike with owner-linked entities, with the aim of preventing clubs from engineering artificially inflated deals to circumvent PSR.
The previous deal with Infinite Athlete was deemed and APT by the Premier League and, if Chelsea go down this route again, they may be waiting for the rules to be relaxed to extract maximum value.
Man City are arguing that the APT system should be declared null and void entirely, which could theoretically open up a major PSR loophole.
