'Chelsea are badly run' - the comment that will haunt Todd Boehly's FARCICAL ownership

Paul Macdonald

2 Apr 2023 14:56 CDT
3 min read

Sometimes you hear quotes and you wonder if they are just too perfect to be real, and in the case of Chelsea and Behdad Eghbali, his foot couldn't be any more inside his mouth.

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Eghbali is co-owner of Chelsea with Todd Boehly and investment group Clearlake, and helped to orchestrate the takeover in the wake of Roman Abramovich's departure around a year ago. He has made the decision along with Boehly to remove Graham Potter from his job after just six month in charge, yet another moment in a thoroughly chaotic season.

Upon taking on the day-to-day duties last year, spending around €275m in the summer transfer market and sacking Thomas Tuchel just two weeks into the new Premier League season, Eghbali still felt qualified to comment on the position of the club he inherited.

Speaking at a conference last October, Eghbali made it clear he felt that Chelsea was a 'badly run' club and that he saw it as an asset that could be improved.

He said: "We thought Chelsea [was] frankly an asset, a business that was not terribly well managed on the football side, sporting side or promotional side, so meaningful opportunity at the club and we’ll get to it for us, who needed the beachhead to then look at multi-clubs.

"[We] looked at it and we think European sports is probably 20 years behind US sports in terms of sophistication on the commercial side, and sophistication on the data side. These are global assets, global audiences which we think we can certainly help grow."

Potter's record stands up to little scrutiny, having won just over 50% of his matches in charge during a six-month stay, but the ownership have spent €550m on new signings since walking in the front door.

The fact is that even with that expenditure the team looks further away from success than ever before, and could well long for the days when winning the Champions League and the Premier League were closer to the norm.

And Eghbali's some might say arrogant words will only seek to anger the fans further, as they wonder whether the people in charge of their club have any idea what they are doing.