Just over two years ago, Chelsea Football Club was on top of the world after winning the most prestigious trophy in club soccer: the UEFA Champions League. Since then, the Russia-Ukraine war has resulted in new ownership and, in turn, an influx of cash. Todd Boehly took over in the spring of 2022, and since then, Chelsea has spent over a billion dollars on transfer fees buying and signing players. Simultaneously, Chelsea has gone from one of the top teams in Europe to the bottom half of the English Premier League.
Impending sanctions on Russian billionaires in the U.K. led former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to step down in 2022, less than a year after Chelsea won their second Champions League of the owner’s tenure. Boehly purchased the club for 4.25 billion dollars, most of which Abramovich reportedly donated to the Ukrainian defense fund. In the aftermath of Abramovich’s departure, multiple Chelsea players made an exit, and Chelsea began to struggle towards the end of the season. However, no one could have predicted what was to come.
When Boehly bought Chelsea, the club almost immediately fell into chaos. With his purchase came the departure of many senior staff members in the Chelsea front office, including former Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech, who was serving as technical advisor.
This mass exodus left the American Boehly as the sporting director in charge of recruiting, a job he was wildly under-qualified for, as his Chelsea ownership was his first ever involvement in the sport. In his first summer, Boehly spent nearly 300 million dollars on transfers — including a combined 145 million on Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella, who have become two of the most criticized players in the Chelsea squad for struggling on the rare occasions they get playing time.
Things got crazier for Chelsea as Boehly fired Chelsea’s Champions League-winning coach, Thomas Tuchel, just one month into the year. Over the course of the 2022-23 season, Chelsea went through four different head coaches. Boehly also went on to more than double his total spending in January 2023. Of those signed in January, only Argentinian midfielder Enzo Fernandez has made a real impact. The second-most expensive player of the window (forward Mykaihlo Mudryk) got his first Chelsea goal just two weeks ago.
Chelsea finished last season in 12th place, their worst season since 1987-88. This season hasn’t started much better. Before Chelsea beat Fulham two weeks ago, the team had gone 35 league games, averaging only .8 points out of a potential 3 per game. This points average would be enough points to get them relegated from the Premier League in every single season of the league’s history. Since Boehly sacked Tuchel’s replacement, Graham Potter, Chelsea has won just four Premier League games and just nine games in all competitions. With Boehly’s transfer total of over 1 billion dollars, the team still lacks true impact players, with only four (Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo, Robert Sanchez and Axel Disasi) of Boehly’s billion worth of signings starting consistently.
One question many fans ask is why the money hasn’t helped, and has in fact hindered. As many fans and teams know, money doesn’t fix everything. With consistent coaching changes and an extremely overcrowded locker room full of new faces, Chelsea has struggled to find an identity. Boehly’s lack of knowledge of the sport has led him to spend large sums of money on players who are too young and under-developed to make a real difference at the level Chelsea plays, and from the outside, it seems like he has spent money just for the sake of spending money. Premier League teams like Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham have spent far less and gotten much more because of their intentional signings. Even Manchester City, who has spent similar amounts to Chelsea, has been smarter with their money, leading to them winning the treble (the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup in just one year). Chelsea’s money will continue to go to waste if they can’t stick to a coach and find a new identity under Boehly.
