Chelsea president admits fault
Days after Chelsea were knocked out of the Champions League, Boehly met behind closed doors with bankers and business partners at Stamford Bridge. Among those in attendance was Anthony Gutman, co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, one of the banks involved in Boehly and Clearlake Capital's takeover of Chelsea last year.
According to The Athletic, at this meeting, Boehly admitted to making many mistakes in the first year of Chelsea management and shared his vision and plan with the club before the 2023-2024 season. However, the Chelsea owner did not detail the mistakes made. The American billionaire and Gutman also declined to comment on the matter after the meeting.
In the first transfer window after taking over at Chelsea, Boehly approved to spend $ 300 million to bring in Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella, Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Denis Zakaria, Carney Chukwuemeka and Gabriel Slonina.
At the mid-season market, Chelsea were even stronger, including two deals over $100 million, Mykhailo Mudryk and Enzo Fernandez. That is not including the fee to buy 17-year-old young talent Jimmy-Jay Morgan from Southampton or the loan fee of Joao Felix from Atletico.
In total, Chelsea spent 668 million USD for the 2022-2023 season, breaking Barca's old record of 415 million USD in the 2017-2018 season. They are also the first team in history to surpass three billion euros ($3.28 billion) to buy players.
However, their record went in the opposite direction, to the point of sacking the coach twice. In September 2022, the Stamford Bridge owner canceled the contract of Thomas Tuchel, after 100 days of Boehly's reign. They then paid Brighton $28 million to break the contract and appoint Graham Potter. Less than seven months, the two sides broke up again. In total, Chelsea lost $ 56 million in contract compensation under Boehly.
They then appointed Frank Lampard as interim manager until the end of the season. But since then, the team has lost four games in all competitions. In the English Premier League, before the 32nd round, Chelsea ranked 11th in the English Premier League, 14 points behind the group participating in the European Cup next season.
