Todd Boehly And His Consortium Are Close To Spending £1 Billion In Signing Players; Has It Been Bad Investments So Far?

Todd Boehly and Consortium have spent almost £1 billion in signing players since they club was bought from Roman Abramovich in 2022.

Chelsea Football Club’s transfer spending under Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital’s ownership has been massive lately and has piqued everyone’s attention.

By taking an advantage in a loophole in UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations, the blues have been able to spend huge since the change of ownership.

Todd Boehly-led Chelsea were also able to spend huge sums by spreading a transfer’s cost over a number of years, by offering long-term contracts to new signings.

Moises Caicedo is the latest Chelsea signing after he penned an eight-year deal after moving from Brighton for an English record fee of up to $146 million.

This transfer have moved Chelsea’s spending in the past three windows to over $1 billion USD – with the 2023/24 team expected to succeed.

The question now is, with all these investments on new players since the takeover, are Chelsea channeled to the right path to success?

Chelsea Has $1 Billion In Signings

The first full season of Clearlake Capital ownership could not have gone much worse for Chelsea – but they somehow survived.

Chelsea under Roman Abramovich were not really known as beacon of stability, but last season was their worst ever after they finished 12th.

The answer for Todd Boehly and his co-investors was not to rein in on the spending – but to bring up the team to a perfect level.

Caicedo becomes Chelsea’s second over £100 million signing that they have made in six months since the takeover.

And it was also Boehly’s seventh signing in the past calendar year to arrive in a transaction worth more than £60 million.

The problem now lies on new coach Mauricio Pochettino to make a cohesive whole out of this group, and they already started with a draw against Liverpool in their first 2023/24 campaign match.

Who is Todd Boehly?

Todd Boehly is an American businessman and investor who was born on September 20, 1973.

Boehly is the co-founder, chairman, chief executive officer and controlling member of Eldridge Industries, a holding company headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The American is also the interim CEO of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and co-controlling owner and chairman of Premier League football club Chelsea.

Chelsea on May 6, 2022, confirmed that his bid had been accepted and would be finalized by the end of the month.

The bid was however approved by the UK and Portuguese governments, Premier League, and the European Union, due to Abramovich’s Portuguese citizenship.

The takeover was completed on 30th May 2022 and Boehly became the chairman and interim sporting director of Chelsea on June 20, 2022, after Bruce Buck stepped down.

Boehly also stepped down as the interim sporting director of Chelsea on January 9, 2023.

Many fans have argued that Todd Boehly doesn’t have the right vision to lead the club despite being financially buoyant.

Since the American took over the club, Chelsea have struggled to even stay on the top half of the table and they faced relegation threat last season for the first time since 1992.