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Despite another reset with a new manager and fresh strategy, the boardroom drama persists at Stamford BridgePerhaps, in hindsight, it was always going to end this way. As some of the world’s wealthiest investors scrambled to find funds after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine set a series of dominoes toppling that forced Roman Abramovich to sell Chelsea, it threw together some unexpected allies.Todd Boehly became the public face of the winning bid, convincing the US sports mogul Mark Walter and the Swiss businessman Hansjörg Wyss to join as 12.8% minority investors. The private equity firm Clearlake Capital put in 61.6%, bringing the owners Behdad Eghbali and José E Feliciano, who made their fortunes investing in tech, into the leadership fold.But once the adrenaline rush of beating 11 serious rivals in an expedited bid process run by the Raine Group had worn off, that was really when the problems started. Now they actually owned Chelsea, how were they going to run it? What was the strategy? How would they tackle a stadium falling well behind their rivals?Maybe Abramovich made running Chelsea look easier than it was. The club had not finished outside the top five for six seasons, yet in the four seasons since the takeover, their average league position is eighth – with a high of fourth and a low of 12th. Possibly the conflicting opinions of people who always think they are right, and have the money to prove it, is not the optimal setup.Before the takeover, an agreement was struck that Boehly, representing Walter and Wyss, would have final signoff on major decisions alongside Eghbali and Feliciano. Over the years, Boehly and Eghbali have been the dominant day-to-day decision-makers at the club, while the others remained largely silent partners, insulated from the fan anger and social media ridicule that inevitably follows any period of struggle.Some sources maintain that Boehly and Eghbali share a “professional” relationship, but signs of strain had leaked into the public domain long before this week’s revelation that Boehly and Walter were open to selling their stakes to Clearlake in a deal that would value the club at about £5bn.In May 2024 Boehly told the Qatar Economic Forum that “patience” with the project was essential. Mauricio Pochettino had just led Chelsea to the EFL Cup final, the FA Cup semi-final and they had recovered from a poor start to finish sixth. Cole Palmer was a breakout star; Reece James was made captain. They won their last five games of the season.Six days later, Pochettino was gone – dismissed after the co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart compiled an 18-page review of the season.Another glimpse of the pervading tension – and possibly a hint at what was to come – emerged in March last year in Boehly’s Bloomberg interview discussing the slow-moving stadium development plans, four years after they were announced.“We have to think long term about what we’re trying to accomplish,” Boehly said. “We have a big stadium development opportunity that we have to flesh out. That’s going to be where we’re either aligned or we ultimately decide to go different ways.”Publicly, Boehly insisted the ownership was aligned. Yet that is also at odds with how it began: the American installing himself as sporting director and driving a £250m spending spree targeting experienced players such as Raheem Sterling and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Chelsea finished 12th.Boehly then stepped back, with Eghbali taking a more active role. About 70 interviews took place to build a new football structure, resulting in the appointments of Winstanley and Stewart – later promoted to co-sporting directors – and Joe Shields, now a co-director of recruitment.They attempted to redefine how a football club is run: buying young, handing out unusually long contracts, in a model that has fascinated and baffled many in football. As an indication of how well that’s gone, in 2024 fans placed stickers around Stamford Bridge mocking up the three owners as clowns, while the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust described their club as “a laughing stock”.The spending has been unprecedented – the pre-tax loss of £262.4m in the year ending June 2025 was a Premier League record supporters had probably not envisaged after Boehly declared the owners’ vision was “to make the fans proud” after the takeover. They have complied with Premier League spending restrictions only by effectively selling the women’s side to themselves. But it could not stop a significant fine for breaching Uefa’s financial rules, which did not permit the club to include the sale as income.But there have been signs that the grand plan(s) will work. Momentum grew under Enzo Maresca Chelsea qualified for the Champions League and lifted the Club World Cup, and there was frustration that last season was derailed by his abrupt departure in January, after which they plummeted from Champions League contenders to 10th.Now comes another reset under Xabi Alonso and a new strategy tweak towards older, more tried and tested players. But the boardroom drama persists. Both sides have explored buying each other out in recent years, but it appears Boehly’s and Walter’s hands have been forced. Walter, a long-term friend and business partner of Boehly, is under investigation by the US Department of Justice for alleged tax fraud and is believed to be selling assets to pay loans facing federal attention. He unexpectedly sold the Los Angeles Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for $12.5bn (£9.2bn) last week and his Chelsea stake could be next.An exit would coincide neatly with Boehly’s five-year tenure as Chelsea chair coming to an end at the conclusion of this season and a representative from Clearlake ready to fill his place. If a sale is agreed, Eghbali and Feliciano will have full control – and no one else to blame if things don’t improve.

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Director Joe Pearlman says he expected Real Madrid manager to ‘try to manipulate us’ in making of Netflix seriesEven in the hyperreal world of football, there are few characters more compelling, more polarising, or more everything than José Mourinho, the best and worst of public him on full display in a new three-part Netflix series. “It reminded me how good he was,” says Joe Pearlman, who directed Mourinho, and the actual Mourinho is, believe it or not, keen to communicate the same. As he puts it in the show: “I look, you look, I see more than you.”Making documentaries, though, is often about taking people to the places they’re most skilled at avoiding. “I knew the interviews were going to be very intense,” says Pearlman, “and he was going to try and control the narrative and manipulate us. Everything bad is everyone else’s fault and everything he’s done is validated by winning. Because that’s all that’s important.”This is just one aspect of an unusual worldview. “There’s a moment in episode three where I ask him about his childhood,” says Pearlman, “and he doesn’t want to talk about it because he doesn’t think it’s relevant to who he is, essentially saying he’s not interested in people. Which, for one of the greatest man-managers of all time, is quite odd.”The son of a much-loved coach, Mourinho felt like an outsider from childhood because he was known by way of his dad. Then, when he became a coach himself, having not been a player, that appeared to confer insider privilege. Indisputably, this self-image has helped Mourinho self-actualise, surviving unlimited wealth at Chelsea and a spell at Real Madrid, with the attitude of “someone who’s had a chip on their shoulder for a lot of their life” – along, of course, with his irrepressible charisma and tactical acumen.Félix Mourinho died in June 2017 and, when that comes up in the documentary, there are tears. “He’s obviously buried the loss of his father,” Pearlman says. “It’s very painful for him to talk about. As someone who’s lost a parent, I can talk about my mum very openly because I’ve processed it. I’ve been to therapy, I’ve tried to understand what that part of my life means. I don’t think José’s ever tried to understand what any part of his life means. I think he’s always looking forward, always looking for the next thing. He’s winning the treble for Inter against Louis van Gaal and Bayern but, at the same time, he’s really thinking about crushing Pep [Guardiola] when he joins Madrid.“Losing his father changed him; it tainted the years that came afterwards. And on top of that, José carries every word, every goal, every decision that doesn’t go his way; it’s a rucksack of pain he’s been lugging around since he was probably 19, 20 years old.”Nevertheless, everything that makes Mourinho special – the wit, the insight, the confidence, the zest, the charm, the genius, the cool – burns through the screen. “He was looking for an outlet to be the biggest possible version of himself and football allowed that,” says Pearlman. “The ego and the charisma on top of the talent meant he could embody a character he’d always dreamt of being, that maybe he wasn’t in his childhood, and that is the person that we’ve come to know as José Mourinho.”That person is, of course, only one version of reality, a character honed for the purpose of footballing warfare. One who, it seems, sees football as distinct from the real world, with combatants permitted to do anything in the pursuit of victory; he is no more apologetic for his Anders Frisk and Eva Carneiro excesses now than at the time. Yet Mourinho also articulates his desire to be loved, though you sometimes wonder if, to him, that has as much in common with adulation as affection. “It can also be: ‘I want to have a lot of attention on me’,” says Pearlman, “and conflict brings that in spades. It’s like this safety blanket that allows him to feel like he’s doing things for a righteous cause.”At home Mourinho is different: more reserved, quieter. And it is with regard to his home life that we experience the show’s other sad moment: Mourinho explaining he’s been away from his family a lot, so much so that it’s easier for them when he’s not around. “You can kind of hear it in my voice,” says Pearlman. “I’m like: ‘Oh my god, what does it even feel like saying that?’”What does Pearlman think the show is about? “A lot of it is about winning at all costs,” he replies, “and what happens when you’re defined by winning and that winning stops. It’s also the portrait of a hero and a villain, one of the great leaders of men that the world has ever seen. As a civilisation, we’re lucky Mourinho didn’t go into politics!”And, of course, the show now has a surprise happy ending, with Mourinho’s return to Madrid. “The person I’ve seen over the last few years at Roma, Benfica … until this last one, I don’t think I could say that I’ve met a happy man or a content person,” says Pearlman. “He is now where he believes he should always have been – after every cup Madrid have won since he left, Florentino Pérez has called to say: ‘This is because of you,’ because of how he modernised the club. And one thing we all know is that whatever comes next, it’s going to be a box-office blockbuster.”

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Chelsea chair Boehly and Walter each own about 13%Sale would give Clearlake effective control of club at 86%The Chelsea chair, Todd Boehly, and director Mark Walter are considering selling their shares in the club to the majority owners, Clearlake Capital, in a deal that would give the private equity company complete control at Stamford Bridge.Clearlake, whose investment is managed by Behdad Eghbali and José E Feliciano, already owns more than 60% of Chelsea, but in an unusual arrangement agreed when buying the club from Roman Abramovich four years ago, they share operational control with a consortium led by Boehly, who along with Walter and Hansjörg Wyss each own about 13%.The two ownership groups have been locked in a stalemate for almost two years when reports first emerged that they were seeking to buy each other out following a disagreement over strategy, particularly regarding their plans for a new stadium.Discussions over a potential deal, which would value the club at more than £5bn, have resumed over the past few weeks however, as first reported by the Financial Times, as Walter is seeking to raise funds to pay off insurers following a US federal investigation over alleged tax fraud.Walter is being investigated by the US Department of Justice over $21bn in loans which it has been alleged were not disclosed to state insurance regulators, which has led to the sudden sale of assets to pay down some of the loans. Walter last week sold the Los Angeles Lakers to Josh ⁠Kushner and Bob Iger ⁠for $12.5bn just a year after buying the NBA franchise for $10bn, leading to speculation that the 66-year-old may also seek to exit Chelsea.Boehly and Walter are close friends as well as longstanding business partners, having previously invested together in the LA Dodgers Major League Baseball team and the LA Sparks WNBA franchise.Together with Wyss, the pair control 38% of Chelsea through Blueco 22 Holdings, although it is unclear whether the Swiss billionaire is also willing to sell. Under the terms of their £2.5bn purchase from Abramovich after the Russian was sanctioned by the UK government following the invasion of Ukraine however, none of Chelsea’s shareholders can sell to a third party without the consent of their partners.An external sale is therefore unlikely, putting Clearlake in a strong position to gain the complete control it has been seeking for some time, although Boehly and Walter will demand a significant premium on the £325m they paid for their shares four years ago.A sale by Boehly and Walter would leave Clearlake with more than 86% of Chelsea’s shares and effective control of the club, including the bid to build a new stadium, which they want to locate at Stamford Bridge.Walter has been a silent and barely visible partner at Chelsea, but Boehly was the public face of the club following the 2022 takeover and acted as interim sporting director during that year’s summer transfer window, leading the purchase of players such as Raheem Sterling and Marc Cucurella.Boehly stepped back from that hands-on role after 12 months, with Eghbali taking more operational control on behalf of Clearlake, but has often been blamed by Chelsea fans for the side’s underperformance.Boehly was due to stand down as chair at the end of the season, with a Clearlake representative to replace him for the next five years under the terms of the ownership agreement.The timing of an exit at this stage would be ironic, as after spending years investing heavily in young players with resale value at Clearlake’s behest, Chelsea have returned to Boehly’s original strategy this summer by signing experienced players such as Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson.Representatives of Clearlake, Boehly and Chelsea were approached for comment.

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Chelsea set 5pm Friday deadline for bids for midfielderMaresca: ‘I don’t think we’re going to do something today’Enzo Maresca is expecting a busy end to the transfer window but says Manchester City will not meet Chelsea’s 5pm Friday deadline to sign Enzo Fernández.Maresca takes charge of City for the first time in a competitive match on Sunday against Arsenal in Cardiff but is a long way from finalising the squad he will have for the season. City are closing to signing the 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille, while Chelsea’s Fernández, who worked with Maresca at Stamford Bridge, is of interest but would cost £120m. The Blues set a 5pm cut-off point on Friday to reach their valuation or not bother.“Not today to be honest, I don’t think we’re going to do something today,” Maresca said. “For sure there are things we need to do, how many I don’t know, can be one can be two depends also if players want to leave so we can see. It’s 48 hours for the final, my first final in this club, I would like to win my first trophy, so my focus isn’t on players that can leave or players that can arrive, my focus is on the game.”The club have rejected two bids from Barcelona for Rodri and are expected to sell Tijjani Reijnders in the coming days.Rodri, who has a year remaining on his contract, returned to the club on Friday after his holiday following the culmination of a triumphant World Cup but Maresca would not be drawn on the midfielder’s immediate future, with a third Barcelona offer anticipated.“The transfer window is open, we can buy players, we can sell players, anything can happen. I just saw Rodri now in the building, I gave him a big hug, he looks good, so we’ll see what happens.”Reijnders is set to join Saudi Pro League side Al-Qadsiah after the two clubs agreed a £51m fee for the Dutchman, who moved to City last summer from Milan but wants more regular playing time.“They all work every day, they all do sessions every day and at the end of the week they all want to play a game,” Maresca said. “When they don’t play, they struggle to understand or they struggle to see the reason why and I can understand that after one season some of them would like to play a little bit more. It’s a normal situation.”James Trafford has already been sold to Leeds, while Omar Marmoush, Rico Lewis and Savinho are others who spent much of Pep Guardiola’s final season on the periphery and could be sold.