Todd Boehly has taken a step back from his role at Chelsea after only attending a handful of home games in recent months, according to reports. The Blues co-owner was a regular at Stamford Bridge last season but has rarely been spotted watching games in person since Mauricio Pochettino took charge over the summer.
It was noted that Boehly was not in attendance at Old Trafford as Chelsea suffered their sixth league defeat of the campaign against Manchester United earlier this week. The 50-year-old has decided to take a ‘step back’ from his role with the Blues in order to focus on his other business interests, according to the Daily Mail.
The report suggests that Boehly always intended to scale back his involvement with the club to put a greater emphasis on his other ventures. However, this should not be taken as a sign that he is no longer committed to his role, with his enthusiasm for Chelsea said to be ‘undimmed’.
Behdad Eghbali, who manages the 60 per cent stake in the club owned by Clearlake Capital, is thought to have taken an increasingly hands-on role in the absence of Boehly this season. The latter stepped down as interim sporting director last January with the aim of slowly relinquishing his responsibilities to executives that were bedding in at Stamford Bridge.
He is now dedicating more time to the running of his other business projects, which include the Los Angeles Lakers basketball and Los Angeles Dodgers baseball teams. It was reported over the summer that Boehly spent 50 per cent of his time working at Chelsea, which has since been scaled back to around 20 per cent.
Boehly’s long absences from Chelsea this season are said to have been noted by players and staff, with Eghbali now having more of a say in the running of the club. It seems as though he will continue to be the one with the most amount of power at Stamford Bridge ahead of the January transfer window, in which the Blues are likely to be active in order to improve their squad.
Chelsea have endured a torrid time of things since Boehly and Eghbali took over the reins from Roman Abramovich, with the west Londoners likely to miss out on Champions League qualification for the second year in a row. The American billionaire was quizzed on Chelsea’s struggles earlier this year and insisted that patience will be required for the Blues to return to their former glories.
Speaking at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference back in May, Boehly said: “It’s such a global sport. Unlike in the US, there are no unions so there’s a market for top players in every country in the world. Each one of those markets is different. You’ve got the Portuguese market, the French market, the English market.
“The ability to go to these markets and you have to build a team and your coach is the conductor of the team. There’s a lot we’ve learnt about the different markets and the global aspect of it all. The fans are demanding and they want to win, we get that. We want to win.
“Our view is that this is a long-term project and we’re committed to the long term. We very much believe we are going to figure it out. We’ve got the best league in the world, what I think is the top city in the world and we’ve got an unbelievable location in the top city in the world.”
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