After a £2.2 billion bid in 2019, a transfer ban, the club’s top scorer being hired and fired, academy prospects making the first team, academy prospects being sold to other teams, academy prospects making it to the top at other first teams, hiring Thomas Tuchel, giving Emma Hayes a lifetime contract, two FA Cup final losses, a third FA Cup final, spending over £300 million across two windows, the women’s team racking up every domestic title in the game, making the Champions League finals, losing a Champions League final, winning a Champions League final, losing the European crown, losing sponsors, losing the owner, fighting to stay in the title race, fighting to stay in the top four, fighting against the Ricketts and fighting against an eleventh-hour bid from Britain’s richest man, Todd Boehly and his consortium might be set to become the new owners of Chelsea Football Club.

It’s fair to say that – while butchering the use of commas in the English language – Chelsea and their fans have been through quite a lot since Todd Boehly launched his first bid for the club.

Fast forward three years and Todd Boehly is on course to win. On the verge of a potential new era – the “Todd Boehly Era” – Chelsea is in for a radical change.

The consortium

Before we get to what fans can expect over the next few years, let’s first go through the members of Todd Boehly’s consortium and their backgrounds.

You’ve likely read about their investments and portfolios, so we won’t talk about that. Instead, we will highlight the more nuanced aspects of the new stewards and how they are relevant to Chelsea.

Todd Boehly

Todd Boehly understands sport. He owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Lakers, and the Los Angeles Sparks. These are all elite teams in both men’s and women’s sports, showing his ambition and desire to purchase and invest across the board. Boehly even invests in DraftKings, a fantasy sports company, and Cloud9, a professional esports company.

Todd Boehly has German ancestry – a nice little link to his new club’s manager. He was also a member of his school’s wrestling team, winning consecutive IAC championships in 1990 and 1991. Boehly was so good that London renamed their facilities to the Boehly Family’s Wrestling Room in 2014 in his honour.

“Football is the biggest sport in the world,” said Boehly in 2019.  “I can’t believe American football can get to use the word ‘football’ because to me that word should be football. The fact is it is still the best product in the world. It’s 90 minutes so it has a great timeline. The passion that the fans have for the activity and the sport and the teams is unparalleled. So when you start to think about what you’re trying to build with these teams, you’re really trying to A, win and B, be part of the community.”

Boehly does not outrightly own any of the aforementioned sports franchises. Neither will he own a majority of Chelsea. But make no mistake, Todd Boehly is the face of this consortium. And with his track record, fans can be optimistic.

“You always just have to keep remembering that the fans are the centre. And the second that you kind of veer, just go back to think about the fans,” he told Yahoo Finance in 2021. “I think we’ve got a great team now … like any business, you have to have the people that are in the business run the business and really feel like they own the outcome. Let them run.”

Boehly’s consortium will run Chelsea in the same way that Fenway Sports Group runs Liverpool. At least, that’s the plan. Boehly is seen as a very data-driven individual who believes in player analytics. Simon Johnson of The Athletic summed it up beautifully: It’s not what you spend but how you spend it.

Mark Walter

Mark Walter is the founder and CEO of Guggenheim Partners, the firm that owns the LA Dodgers via Guggenheim Baseball Management. He is also part-chairman and the majority owner of the Dodgers. Any qualms that people had about Todd Boehly owning a ‘mere 20%’ of the Dodgers should be extinguished. Mark Walter is in this, and he is in it with Boehly.

Walter was the one who took the initiative to fast-track the Dodgers acquisition in 2011. He gave Frank McCourt, the previous owner, an instant ultimatum – as you will go on to read – and it worked. Walter is a man of conviction. It has been reported that Todd will take up operational control of Chelsea but perhaps Walter will take up operational control alongside Boehly at some point, if not at the beginning. If you look at the Dodgers’ track record over the past ten years, there is nothing to be concerned about.

Another interesting angle on Walter is the fact that he is the boss at Guggenheim. This has led many to ask, “Why didn’t Guggenheim try to buy Chelsea?” My guess is as good as yours. However, it opens up endless possibilities in the future to gain access to the financial benefits that Guggenheim possesses – over $340 billion, and growing.

Walter and his wife, Kimbra, have already given millions to charity. He feels that buying the Dodgers gives him and his family the platform to do more.

“For us, my wife and I, and all of my partners believe that corporations have to be corporate citizens, and individuals who benefit from them, or who have built them, need to give back,” he explains. “You can’t take it with you, and you ought to do something philanthropic with it. If I give dollars to some charity, nobody cares. I mean, it helps the charity, but nobody cares. But if the Dodgers do the same thing, they bring more focus to issues and that makes it better.”

Hansjorg Wyss

Wyss is the Swiss billionaire who has already turned a few fans against him before even claiming ownership of the club. He was the first name who came to prominence when he told Swiss paper Blickch about Roman Abramovich’s intentions to sell Chelsea.

Wyss is 86 years old and has never been involved in football. While recent reports from Nicola Imfield – a Swiss journalist – have suggested that Wyss sees Chelsea as a business and will not squander his personal fortune, his overall ownership stake is expected to be lower than that of his consortium’s colleagues.

He is expected to take a backseat while Boehly and the others run the day-to-day operations of the club and make key decisions. 

Jonathan Goldstein

Goldstein’s status as a Tottenham Hotspur fan is not the reason why Boehly brought him in to be a part of his consortium. Goldstein’s expertise in real estate is going to be helpful with the redevelopment of Stamford Bridge, not to mention he is a long-time associate and partner of Boehly’s.

It speaks of Boehly’s wisdom to bring Goldstein on board: he is a football fan, and he lives in London. He can be Boehly’s eyes and ears while he is in America. Even if some think of his allegiance to Spurs as an issue. Frankly, it shouldn’t be, there are many instances of an individual within sports that supports someone else but ends up at a rival, lets look for instance at Boehly’s closest competitor in the ownership race over the last few days in Sir Jim Ratcliffe who admitted in previous interviews he has a big association to Manchester United.

Goldstein is a long-time partner of Boehly and knows how he would like to run Chelsea. He has also known Daniel Finkelstein for a few years, who is one of the most important members of this consortium. For Goldstein, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he will not squander it.

Daniel Finkelstein

Finkelstein is a lifelong Chelsea fan and season ticket holder. He will be one of two non-executive members of the club’s board. Having sat on the government’s panel for a fan-led review into football, Finkelstein is expected to be an extended arm of the fanbase and fan issues will be voiced through him. Finkelstein has already engaged with Chelsea fans on Twitter including Chelseafc365’s Max (or as most know him – CFCPys). Finkelstein has represented himself and his consortium extremely well. He has already attended games at Stamford Bridge with Todd Boehly.

However, the most interesting thing that Finkelstein brings to the table is his love of statistics. A data-driven man, Finkelstein has had a column in The Times called The Fink Tank for the past twenty years. This is no ordinary column; Finkelstein will bring in football expertise that Chelsea currently lacks – using data as a tool.

Of course, there is already a scouting team present at Chelsea who must be using data as part of their methods, but they have garnered constant criticism for the number of failed signings that have occurred over the past few years at the club.

Tiémoué Bakayoko; one of many unsuccessful signings for Chelsea whose contract runs longer than that of Jorginho and N’golo Kanté (Credit: Chelsea Core)

Finkelstein will bring the latest and greatest in statistical analysis to Chelsea; something that the club could do with. Gone are the days of Roman Abramovich covering up the cracks of failed transfers by throwing more money at highly-rated players – even if they didn’t fit the profile of a player in a Chelsea team.

Proof of Finkelstein’s oversight and guidance exists in a man called Ian Graham. Graham was hired by Finkelstein as a young PhD holder in Physics from Cambridge University. Graham did not have much professional experience in football at the time – he blogged about stats. Finkelstein hired him anyway.

Graham went from Finkelstein’s research assistant to head of the data department at Liverpool – he can be credited as the man alongside Michael Edwards for the signings in the Klopp era. Edwards himself is a man that many Chelsea fans want to take over from Marina Granovskaia, should she leave the club.

Another one of Finkelstein’s impressive statistical analyses is when he and his team predicted that France would win the 2018 FIFA World Cup ahead of the other three semi-finalists – which, of course, they did.

An interesting discussion from talkSPORT in 2011 occurred when Finkelstein explained how his team concluded that the player of the season for the 2010/11 Premier League season was Florent Malouda.

“Our computer model is completely objective – so no human hand touches the results. We look at every move that’s made on the field, and we used the same ranking system which we developed which was used for FIFA ranking in the World Cup,” says Finkelstein. “We’re taking every ball that’s played, how much it adds to the probability of scoring a goal – we were able to relate that to a large computer programme to the overall outcome in terms of points. So we’re relating every move that’s made on the field to a complicated mathematical model to the points that a team scores.”

Without the unlimited funds of Roman Abramovich, Boehly and Finkelstein will bring a new style of player recruitment – something not unlike that at Liverpool – which could bode very well for Tuchel and his team. It is a welcome change to Chelsea; something that the club has needed for a long time. However, it is not to say that the new owners will not spend big on a player if they fit the bill.

Barbara Charone

Charone is a legendary music PR officer and will be the other non-executive board member alongside Finkelstein. The Chicago-born Chelsea fan is a season ticket holder who has a framed picture of Didier Drogba’s Champions League-winning penalty in her office.

Charone sat down with The Telegraph earlier last month and was full of praise for both Thomas Tuchel and Emma Hayes.

“I’m obviously really excited to be a part of the future if this is successful. I think we’re in an unbelievable place,” she said. “We have a manager that’s been through a lot and comes out just like a saint. Not just as a football coach, but more importantly, I think, as a person. It’s just the way he’s handled everything. Even when being asked about the war. He’s just unbelievable, and I hope he’s a manager for a long time.”

Charone is not the only one singing praises for Tuchel. While Emma Hayes has already been given an indefinite contract by the club, multiple sources claim that Boehly and his consortium rate Tuchel very highly and want to do everything they can to back him, including the continued integration of academy players into the first team.

“It’s (Chelsea’s academy) just incredible,” says Charone. “Obviously now we’re seeing the fruits of it with Mason Mount and Reece James and also Conor Gallagher at Palace. And then, of course, the Chelsea women’s team – Emma Hayes also deserves five stars for the way she has handled herself on and off the pitch.”

Jose Feliciano and Behdad Eghbali

Jose Feliciano and Behdad Eghbali are the cofounders of Clearlake Capital, the investment firm that is expected to own a majority stake in Chelsea.

Feliciano was born in Puerto Rico to a lower-middle-class family. He used to drive two-and-a-half hours every weekend to go and see his grandmother. Feliciano speaks of his appreciation and gratitude toward life.

He is a philanthropist, and he and his wife, Kwanza Jones have their own foundation whose aim is to focus on positive societal change in four main areas: education, entrepreneurship, equity and empowerment.

Their foundation fights for diversity and inclusion, as well as access to capital for underrepresented groups, and has donated more than $75 million to various causes.

Behdad Eghbali is the other half of Clearlake Capital. While not much is known about him, various sources say that he is a ‘football man’ and that Behdad in particular is committed to the project at Chelsea alongside Todd Boehly.

While fans should not expect Abramovich-level spending, what they can expect is heavy investment in a calculated and thoughtful manner. The Clearlake Capital founders are venturing into the football space for the first time, but sources claim they are long-time partners of Boehly. Boehly is expected to have equal voting rights alongside Clearlake, and while Clearlake will provide the funding, Boehly will run the operational side of things. Both Feliciano and Eghbali have a personal net worth of around $3 billion each, according to Forbes.

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This core group of individuals will be responsible for everything Chelsea do in the coming years – from transfers and stadium redevelopment to sponsorships and fan involvement. So what can we expect?

While Clearlake Capital are the majority owner, Todd Boehly is the face of this consortium. He will assume operational control alongside Mark Walter, with Hansjorg Wyss taking a backseat. Jonathan Goldstein has been brought in as a long-time business partner of Boehly’s, and the redevelopment of Stamford Bridge is where his responsibilities will lie. Daniel Finkelstein and Barbara Charone will take on non-executive board director roles at Chelsea. Finkelstein’s role, in particular, will be very interesting, given the extensive knowledge he has on Chelsea and his use of data. 

We must go back to 2012, when Boehly, Walter and Guggenheim Partners acquired the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team was in shambles from top to bottom. Over the past decade, Boehly and his team have helped bring the Dodgers to the very summit of baseball, and they aren’t slowing down any time soon.

The front office – equivalent to a board in football – underwent a complete makeover. This led to a revolution for the Dodgers. Data became an integral part of player acquisitions. Youth players were given far more importance. The area surrounding Dodger Stadium was used to its maximum potential, media and advertising gave a boost to the club commercially, and the fans felt involved and loved again.

To get an idea of what Chelsea might look like in ten years, we can look at how the Dodgers are run and draw comparisons to Chelsea. Here is their story over the past ten years. Can Boehly bring similar success for the next ten?

A sell-out crowd at Dodger Stadium; the biggest ballpark in the MLB (Credit: Jean Fruth via Twitter) 

The early years

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Entertainment Group acquired the LA Dodgers from its previous owners, the O’Malley family, in the late 1990s, in part because its competitor, Disney, had just purchased the Angels. And, although Murdoch understood how to operate tabloids and cable channels, his executives were less adept at running a professional sports team: year after year, the Dodgers lost money and slid into mediocrity.

In 2004, Fox sold the Dodgers to Frank McCourt, a wealthy Boston real-estate developer. Not only did McCourt not put up any of his own money, but Fox also loaned him a large portion of the $420 million price tag. McCourt put up his one big asset as collateral; an undeveloped beachfront parking lot in Boston.

Overall, the spending left the McCourts in debt to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, eventually forcing the Dodgers into bankruptcy.

But getting rid of the Dodgers wasn’t going to be simple. McCourt had to establish a high enough price to pay off his wife in divorce court, then clear his debts, and finally squeeze out enough money to live on.

According to bankruptcy documents, the Dodgers owed creditors $573 million. Forbes estimated the franchise’s worth at $900 million. If McCourt sold the club for that amount, the majority of the proceeds would be depleted by debts and taxes, leaving the couple with nothing. McCourt would need twice that.

Initially, a slew of billionaires was in line to bid for the Dodgers. However, when McCourt hinted that he was asking for much over a billion dollars, the majority of those suitors declined.

Todd Boehly and Mark Walter had a different opinion. After all, private equity is an industry that depends on purchasing firms, restructuring them, and, in many cases, rethinking them. And, if anything, Boehly and Walter thought the Dodgers were undervalued at $900 million.

They had the funds to make a bid, but they lacked local influence. So, in November 2011, they boarded a plane bound for Los Angeles in order to meet Magic Johnson, an LA Lakers legend and lifelong Dodgers fan.

Boehly and Walter left an indelible effect on Johnson. Each of the preceding parties contended that the Dodgers’ actual worth rested in its advantageous real-estate holdings; indeed, the club played on hundreds of acres of prime undeveloped ground near downtown Los Angeles. Johnson, on the other hand, had become distrustful of these men’s motivations. He wanted an owner that was dedicated to developing a successful squad.

During his meeting with Guggenheim officials, he challenged Walter, “Are you doing this for the investment or are you doing it to win?” Walter looked right back at Johnson and said, “I’m doing this to win.”

A few months later in March 2012, Major League Baseball named the three contenders to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers. The first was Stan Kroenke, a real-estate tycoon from St. Louis who already owned the Rams, the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche, and of course, Arsenal Football Club.

The second contender was Steve Cohen, a New York City hedge-fund magnate worth an estimated $11 billion, most of it liquid. Cohen had a tiny ownership in the Mets, which he vowed to sell if he won the Dodgers auction. Walter’s Guggenheim group was the third finalist.

Cohen seemed to be the logical option. He seemed to have the biggest money, and it was widely assumed that Major League Baseball regarded him as the preferred candidate since they were already familiar with him as a minority owner in the sport.

McCourt was scheduled to arrange a formal auction in New York at M.L.B.’s Park Avenue offices, with the support of investment bank Blackstone Group, where all three groups would meet in the same room and engage in a bid-off.

The night before the auction, however, Mark Walter met alone with McCourt in a Manhattan hotel conference room. The troubled Dodgers owner pushed a piece of paper across the table toward Walter. It was Cohen’s signed offer to acquire the Dodgers for $2 billion, a startling sum that was almost double the biggest amount ever spent for a professional sports franchise.

Walter didn’t flush at all. He promised McCourt $2.15 billion in cash and an interest in the property around Dodger Stadium if he and his partners chose to develop it.

However, there was one catch: Walter warned McCourt it was take-it-or-leave-it. If McCourt left the room, the agreement was dead. The two men shook hands after McCourt agreed to the conditions.

Of course, there was apprehension over the fact that this was just a verbal agreement; McCourt could always go back and sign the papers with Cohen right after.

He never did. Funnily enough, this very week ten years ago, McCourt signed over the ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers to Mark Walter and Todd Boehly.

The rest is history.

(From left to right) Stan Kasten, Mark Walter, Earvin Magic Johnson, Peter Guber, and Todd Boehly during the press conference to introduce Guggenheim as the new owners of the LA Dodgers (Credit: CNBC)

Making average players good and good players great

The Dodgers have thrived in a system designed specifically to prevent such single-team supremacy, with the luxury tax, caps on draft and international signing bonuses, and extra draft picks awarded to small-revenue clubs – constraints that the Braves and Yankees teams were not subject to – and they won 14 and 9 straight titles respectively.

The Dodgers show no signs of slowing down after ten years.

Chelsea have struggled to show such a level of dominance during the past decade. The club slips in and out of seasons, winning a league title here and a European cup there; Chelsea are nowhere near the level of Manchester City and Liverpool. With Jurgen Klopp extending his contract and the possibility of Pep Guardiola following suit, Chelsea could remain third best – or worse – if they don’t find a consistent and sustainable long-term plan.

But how did the Dodgers do it? How have they managed to keep a giant in the majors and an exceptional farm system underneath it, a relationship that is often inverted? How have they turned prospects and retreads into instant stars apparently on a yearly basis, leaving other teams scratching their heads and wondering what they missed?

There can be no assessment of the Dodgers’ success without mentioning their enormous financial resources. The Dodgers play in the country’s second-largest market, earn an average of $334 million each year from their broadcast contract, and have topped MLB in attendance for the previous ten seasons.

As a result, the Dodgers had the highest or second-highest payroll in MLB every year from 2013 to 2017, and they placed in the top 10 in both 2018 and 2019.

They are not, however, in a monetary stratosphere of their own. Other high-revenue clubs have comparable financials, but none have been able to match the Dodgers’ track record of consistently winning while sustaining an unending prospect pool.

The Dodgers’ financial commitment to player acquisition and development, as well as player welfare, is exceptional.

As of 2020, the Dodgers employ 86 professional and amateur scouts, the fourth most of any club. They have 54 personnel in player development amongst coordinators, coaches, analysts, and directors, which is tied for ninth-most in baseball. They are one of just two teams, along with the Red Sox, to rank in the top seven in both categories.

The Dodgers are able to spend a lot of time and energy finding outstanding staff members, recruiting them, bringing them in, and developing them. They make significant investments in employee development. They’re able to turn over a profit because individuals get promoted to other teams every year, which puts them in an enticing position for the upper end of the market.

The money enables the Dodgers to hire some of the finest, if not the best, coaches and development employees. It also enables them to give better nutrition and facilities to their junior leaguers, laying the groundwork for outstanding physical growth.

The Dodgers’ five non-complex league affiliates, Triple-A Oklahoma City, Double-A Tulsa, high Class A Rancho Cucamonga, low Class A Great Lakes, and Rookie-level Ogden, all play in stadiums built within the last 25 years and are among the best in their respective leagues in terms of infrastructure.

This would be the equivalent of Chelsea having associated teams at every level of English football – with each team being the best in their respective league.

The Dodgers employ travelling chefs for each club – from Rookie-level Ogden through Double-A Tulsa. The two levels without a chef, the Rookie-level Arizona League club and Triple-A Oklahoma City, get catered meals from high-end sources like Whole Foods.

A lot of players in other teams receive leftover concession stand food or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The Dodgers go far and beyond to make sure every player at every level receives the best nutrition and facilities.

“When you walk in and see the Dodgers play, it’s obvious how excellent of condition these players are in,” one rival scout remarked. “I simply believe they’re a step ahead of us.”

This is similar to what they have over at Bayern Munich – the transformations that players like Leon Goretzka and Alphonso Davies have gone through have made them physical specimens. The service, the facilities, and the high-quality cuisine are not inexpensive. Without the money, the Dodgers could not accomplish what they do. At the same time, other clubs with more money than the Dodgers do not do what the Dodgers do.

The Dodgers get a lot of extremely young athletes, and a lot of the time the lowest-hanging fruit is just helping individuals grow physically. This is a credit to the staff too; the performance and medical personnel are outstanding. The Dodgers believe they have the greatest strength and conditioning in the industry. When you combine that with nutrition, a lot of the leaps you see in players from year to year are just due to being in excellent physical form. Andy Robertson, anyone?

The investment in personnel, facilities and nutrition would be meaningless if the Dodgers didn’t bring in great players, to begin with. They’ve excelled at both amateur and professional levels.

This is an important factor to consider when it comes to Chelsea – the club already have one of the best youth setups in the world in Cobham. One criticism of the club is that they do not use it. Talents like Tariq Lamptey, Tino Livramento, Marc Guehi, Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham have all left in recent years, only to go on and excel at their new clubs.

Other young players brought in were often not given enough time and were sent packing before they could be given a chance. Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne are the two prime examples – players who are now the best in the world and have consistently been for some time now. With the pipeline of talent that Chelsea possess – or used to possess – they should be doing better in this regard.

Fikayo Tomori has grown into one of Europe’s best young centre backs this season while Chelsea face a defensive crisis with players like Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen leaving as free agents (Credit: AC Milan)

The Dodgers actively pursue athletic, versatile athletes who hit for average and have great plate discipline on both the pro and amateur levels, believing that if the contact skills and quality are already there, they can educate such players to add power with swing changes.

There is a willingness to go from good to great at the Dodgers. To their credit, the Dodgers rookies have been receptive to the idea that they can unlock their full potential through these training and nutrition programmes. For them, that’s what it takes from the athlete, and credit goes to both the player and the coaches.

“The Cobham Mentality” is something that a lot of people rave about when talking about Chelsea’s academy players – they have the grit, determination and mentality to take the pressure off the club and still perform to a high level. You just have to trust them.

In recent years, a distinguishing trait of the Dodgers rookies has been their ability to easily transition to the big leagues, apparently impervious to the ups and downs that plague other clubs’ rookies.

The players largely attribute this to culture and communication. Dodgers players are given the same scouting report structure and substance in the majors as they are in low Class A – right from the lower leagues – which allows them to grasp what they’re taught without a learning curve as they move to the top.

The Dodgers’ organisation has become known for its communication, information synchronization, and player individualization. The impact has made it easier for newcomers to acclimatize since they don’t have to worry about reading unfamiliar scouting reports or modifying their pregame procedures. They simply walk out onto the field and play. And boy, can they play.

Chelsea function in a slightly different way. The club sends their best prospects out on loan to develop, hoping that they can either take the next step with another loan or be integrated into the first team, should the manager deem them good enough. However, the logic is the same – develop your younger players slowly, and trust them to be able to make it to the first team one day.

It certainly helps how relaxed back and egoless the Dodgers trainers are. From the top to the bottom, it certainly is a collaborative effort. This isn’t a coincidence. The Dodgers want to create lifelong learners of the game, individuals with high sporting IQ and a strong work ethic.

The final component, and the one most often mentioned by players who have just joined the Dodgers, is the clubhouse culture.

First-year players are encouraged to be themselves rather than being pushed into subordinate positions as rookies or expected to be quiet as the new man. They’re left alone to do their own thing. If they seem to be going a little off course, the senior players and staff give them a little push to get back on track.

That is not conducive to the players being able to perform at their best, however. The players are there to help the team win games, and that’s all that matters. The Dodgers want them to be in whatever frame of mind they need to be in order to win games.

This is an excellent balance of a strict winning culture that is also approachable and welcoming. It is not intimidating but inspiring. It doesn’t happen anywhere else in baseball. It helps the younger players feel at ease. From good players, they become great players.

We have seen managers like Guardiola and Klopp improve good players and make them great – Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane, Aymeric Laporte, Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota, Andy Robertson, even Divock Origi and Fabian Delph. Thomas Tuchel has a similar ability. He has made players like Ousmane Dembele, Christian Pulisic and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang world-class during his stint in Germany, following which they sold for record sums.

Should a similar philosophy be employed at Chelsea, Tuchel and his team could reap the benefits.

Hire the best, let them do the rest :

The Dodgers’ new front office – president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, general manager Farhan Zaidi, and vice president of player personnel Josh Byrnes – had long decided the team needed a complete makeover.

The 2014 Los Angeles Dodgers possessed a lot of solid components, but they were never a good team. The 25-man roster was painfully rigid. The defence was atrocious. The clubhouse was poisonous, with All-Star-sized egos colliding. A toxic atmosphere. Broken to the core.

While Chelsea’s board is nowhere near this problematic, they definitely split opinions. Marina Granovskaia could be on her way out the door with Roman Abramovich. While she is known to be one of the best negotiators in the game, fans have heavily criticized her for her inability to move players on – ‘deadwood’, as some would call it – with the likes of Danny Drinkwater, Kenedy, Baba Rahman, Tiémoué Bakayoko, Ross Barkley and Michy Batshuayi still on the books, to name a few. Some have gone on loans that have led nowhere, while others are on the fringes of the first team with no realistic chance of playing. Some fans are welcoming the new ownership, and the Dodgers model shows why.

Boehly, Walter and the rest of the ownership spent millions of dollars to put together a think tank of baseball’s most creative thinkers. The Dodgers recruited Friedman, a 38-year-old former Wall Street executive who had performed wonders with the small-market Tampa Bay Rays. A few weeks later, the Dodgers completed the front-office overhaul by acquiring Zaidi from the Oakland A’s and hiring Byrnes, a former general manager for the Arizona Diamondbacks and division rival Padres.

Friedman enjoys walking around with a squeeze ball in his hand. He doesn’t do it to release tension – he does it for attention. He wants the ball to act as a conversation starter. He’ll throw the ball at individuals he wants information from – coworkers, reporters, anybody. His role is to assess and make choices. He needs as much information as possible to make sound judgments, therefore he initiates and engages others to get it. Using a squeeze ball.

Andrew Friedman; President of Baseball Operations at the LA Dodgers (Credit: Los Angeles Times)

Friedman brought the same process-driven chill to the Dodgers’ war room in San Diego. The rest of baseball may have been perplexed by the Dodgers’ erratic movements. The fast-paced transfers and mass exodus made little sense to the outside world as they transpired in real-time. However, inside the room, where Friedman and his colleagues could see their master plan spelt out on the board. The revamp was real. These were not minor changes. These were game-changing actions, and Friedman was still the new guy in town. But he knew what he was doing.

“It’s uncomfortable for human beings to invite change,” says Friedman. “We get comfortable doing something, so why would you change and introduce risk into your life?”

“The mindset in everything we do is to be the casino,” Friedman said. “We want to be the house. We’re going to make a lot of decisions. It’s a high-volume business. We can’t be afraid of making mistakes. The key is to be right more than we’re wrong and … trust that it will work out well.”

This is something a lot of Chelsea fans are longing for – change. New scouts, a replacement for Michael Emenalo and a change to the ruthlessness that Abramovich always had in his back pocket. While the hire-and-fire culture has worked for Chelsea over the past twenty years or so, it has never led to a consistent run of performances in the league. Chelsea’s last league title was in 2017. Many feel that Chelsea have become a ‘cup team’, punching above their weight and managing to pull through in cup finals that could have very easily gone the other way – leading to a very different trajectory for the London club.

The Dodgers front office debated for weeks – what type of squad they should form? They mostly agreed on what they would prioritize: defence, positional flexibility, organizational depth, and intelligent, run-producing hitters. It sounds easy on paper, but it’s extremely difficult to execute.

The rapid-fire sales and acquisitions were not very appealing to Dodgers fans, and the gradual changes made by the front office to strengthen their squad depth initially made many question whether these small-market players’ abilities would transfer to the next level.

“If you told me that if we spent $500 million on our payroll, we’d win a championship, I’d do that in a second,” says Mark Walter. “But there’s nothing you can do to guarantee winning.”

“I’m a baseball fan, but I’m not qualified to make baseball decisions, and I don’t want to pretend to be,” says Walter. “One of the things I’ve learned is that baseball is something that happens over time.”

Walter controls approximately $340 billion in assets as chairman of Guggenheim Partners. His speciality is in financial modelling, which entails selecting firms that can be purchased at a cheap price and either sold at a high price or retained as they expand and produce tremendous profits.

“People live in the illusion of security,” says Walter. “You could be working at Bear Stearns (a global investment bank) one day, and the next day you’re out of business. You thought it was secure because it was a big company. Wrong.”

Throughout his career, Walter has been right way more frequently than he has been wrong; otherwise, he would not be in a position to own the Dodgers. But he’s been wise enough to recognize danger.

“You can’t control the world. If you controlled the world, there would be a lot of things you’d change, right?” he says. “World peace, poverty, cancer. We’d probably skip business or baseball.”

Before deciding whether he would take the job or not, Walter’s on-field counterpart Friedman examined the decision in the same way he would a five-team trade: analyzing the advantages and downsides, then projecting the possibilities of success – or, in this instance, job satisfaction. Happiness.

In Thomas Tuchel, Chelsea have a remarkable manager and an even more impressive man. Many fans are calling him the club’s greatest ever manager. The way he has navigated the club and his players through a turbulent season is nothing short of extraordinary.

Under Roman Abramovich, Tuchel’s job was always going to be under threat. Under Boehly, he could become a visionary. He has rarely put a foot wrong. It is intriguing to see whether new ownership could put his team on the same level as City-led Guardiola and a Klopp-led Liverpool. Based on his past fifteen or so months in charge, many will agree with what should be the logical route: give him time and give him the tools. Thomas Tuchel will deliver.

Thomas Tuchel needs time and backing to bring Chelsea to the level of Manchester City and Liverpool (Credit: Sporting News)

Data-driven Dodgers

If you want to know the key to the Dodgers’ success, just look at their front office, boasting Wall Street credentials, MIT degrees, and Ph.Ds.

This is a company that lives on data. Before each game, players are handed charts detailing everything from defensive positions to opposing pitching trends to hidden ailments. The catcher wears a color-coded cheat sheet on his wristband. During games, outfielders have index cards in their back pockets to remind them of their defensive positioning. Players even have access to a private statistics webpage.

While the individuals responsible for all the data are part of the backroom staff, constantly going over statistical data with their players, they are genuinely recognized and embraced as one of their own inside the clubhouse culture, avoiding the divide so often seen between players, field crew, and front office officials. They are not just seen as ‘numbers men.’ They’re always in the clubhouse, chatting with players and coaches and bouncing ideas off one another.

The communication from the front office is quite relaxed. Nobody feels intimidated or reluctant to approach senior members of the staff. There is a high degree of respect for everyone, which is not seen in every team. The clubhouse chemistry is cherished. People talk about the right profile of player a lot, often using data.

The signing of Romelu Lukaku at Chelsea has sparked an ongoing debate about player profiles. The £98.5 million acquisition was meant to be the final piece of the puzzle. However, Lukaku’s Chelsea career could not have gone any worse than it has now. There is already talk of him being moved on, with fans hopeful that the new ownership will bring in a shrewder style of recruitment, with a Director of Football such as Paul Mitchell or Michael Edwards, who was formerly at Liverpool.

Liverpool have had great success in the transfer window in recent years, often signing players for bargain prices who tend to hit the ground running. Jurgen Klopp is in very close contact with his own recruitment and data team, something similar to what Andrew Friedman has at the Dodgers.

When it comes to making the final choices that may make or destroy an organization, Friedman assembles everyone involved, argues about the complexities of every prospective step, and acts courageously and with conviction.

“I think it was a bit of a mind scratcher at first when I saw all of the experienced individuals they recruited,” says a Dodgers senior consultant. “That was immediately forgotten. I believe it comes down to Andrew’s ability to analyze talent not just on the field, but also in the front office. We transformed the culture not just in the dugout, but also in the front office.”

After games, the Dodgers temporarily pump up the clubhouse sound, with a disco ball whirling on the ceilings, but by the time the clubhouse opens to reporters, the Dodgers had straight faces on. They refuse to get excited about their winning streaks or even accept plaudits for their efforts, claiming that victory laps are premature. They may have a genuine chance to win more regular-season games than any other club in baseball history this year, but no one is anxious about the prospect of immortality.

The same immortality beckons every season for clubs like Manchester City and Liverpool. At the time of writing, a point separates the two in the Premier League title race, Liverpool are yet to play an inconsistent Chelsea in the FA Cup final, and the Merseyside club already have one foot in the Champions League final, where they could meet their rivals from Manchester. And not the red ones. That’s how far these two teams have come.

The Dodgers had the finest talent in the league, but it never came together for them. The teams of old weren’t able to progress, similar to this Chelsea team. Now, there are no egos within the Dodgers. Everyone realizes that they must work together to win. And no one takes anything for granted.

“Our club is even nastier now,” says Kiki Hernandez, a Dodgers kitman. “Good luck to whoever has to play us. That’s the attitude we have right now.’’

Finally, they’re a real team.

In a few years, Chelsea could be too.

✍🏻 @Aranyaknanda – 👨🏻‍💻 Edited and Published – @CFCPYS