Boehly and Eghbali have ripped out Chelsea's heart with deplorable academy exits

Cameron Smith

• Updated: 4 Jul 2024 10:32 BST
• 5 min read

Chelsea’s new owners have a shiny new toy syndrome and it may have destroyed the best thing about the club.

Over €1 billion has been spent on new signings since Todd Boehly, Behdad Eghbali and Clearlake Capital arrived in 2022, with the majority of that investment being splashed on some of the best youngsters in world football.

Upon the arrival of new owners two years ago, Chelsea launched ‘Vision 2030’ - a transfer strategy that would see them target unproven youngsters, rather than established superstars.

READ MORE: Premier League summer transfers 2024 - All the Done Deals

The aim was to sign wonderkids on reduced fees and watch them develop into world beaters. Only the very best would become regulars in the first-team and the rest would be sold for profit.

Academy Manager Neil Bath played a prominent role in the launch of ‘Vision 2030’ and he was a key figure in its inception.

However, Bath has left the club, along with fellow academy stalwart Jim Fraser, as first revealed by X account ChelseaYouth.

READ MORE: The HUGE list of wonderkids Chelsea have signed under Todd Boehly

The report states that both have left “amid radical changes to the academy's management structure,” with the news backed by The Athletic and Fabrizio Romano.

Bath joined Chelsea as Academy Manager in 2004, while Fraser was hired as his assistant just one year later.

Together, they helped build and develop arguably the best academy system in world football - one that won five consecutive FA Youth Cup’s from 2014 to 2018.

Cobham may not have the allure of Barcelona’s La Masia, but arguably no club in world football has produced as many top class players as Chelsea over the past decade.

Reece James, Mason Mount, Levi Colwill, Marc Guehi, Fikayo Tomori, Tammy Abraham, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Trevoh Chalobah, Conor Gallagher, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Dominic Solanke, Tino Livramento and many, many more can all thank Cobham for their rise into the senior game.

Even Declan Rice, Jamal Musiala, Michael Olise and Eddie Nketiah spent time in Chelsea’s academy during their youth.

Since 2022, however, the Blues’ academy has seemingly taken a backseat.

Ian Maatsen and Lewis Hall have already been sold, while Rio Ngumoha, touted to be ‘the next Musiala’, has stalled on a new contract and could leave. In addition, those who break into the first-team are viewed as pure profit.

Chelsea’s new owners may have been able to get away with losing the soul of the club if there was notable success on the pitch. However, the Blues have finished 12th and sixth during their two campaigns in charge and are a far cry away from the team who won the Champions League just three years ago.

Their squad is extremely talented and certainly has the potential to challenge for major honours next season, but many Blues fans will be gutted by the radical changes to their club’s academy set-up.

Chelsea’s recruitment has seen them sign some extremely promising youngsters, such as Kendry Paez and Estevao Willian, but their academy is capable of producing superstars too - as proven over the past decade.

However, it’s been neglected, and Boehly and Eghbali have prioritised a transactional approach over emotion. As a result, they have already lost the backing of Chelsea’s loyal fans.

The Premier League is also responsible

Admittedly, the Premier League has to take some of the blame too. Its Profit and Sustainability Rules mean academy players are now seen as vessels for income and youngsters are almost being traded from club to club.

This has been seen to a dramatic effect so far this summer, with over-inflated fees being spent on academy players in order to balance the books.

Chelsea themselves have been at the forefront of this, with the Blues selling Ian Maatsen to Aston Villa and signing Omari Kellyman - with 148 senior minutes to his name - for €22.5 million in return.

The Blues also want to sell Chalobah, Gallagher and Armando Broja as they look to maximise profit margins to stay within the Premier League’s financial guidelines.

Selling academy players should never be the answer, but the English top flight has made it an attractive proposition and Chelsea’s new owners have jumped at the chance of exploiting another loophole.

Whether this contributed to Bath and Fraser’s exits is unknown, but Chelsea appear to have turned their back on an academy system widely regarded as the best in England.