Todd Boehly is now a step closer towards completing a restructure at Chelsea after having created a new role at Stamford Bridge.
According to The Athletic, the Blues are set to appoint AS Monaco technical director Laurence Stewart to a role which is yet to be specified. The report states that an agreement is in place between the west Londoners and the French giants for the Englishman to join.
Stewart has previously worked with the Everton, Manchester City, the FA, Red Bull network and RB Leipzig. The latter pair of employment destinations look to be a key reason behind his appointment at Chelsea as Boehly looks to build a multi-club model.
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Stewart has also been central to the set-up of similar multi-club model at Monaco which included building relations with Belgian side Cercle Bruges. Speaking to the Training Ground Guru in April 2021, he said: "It’s the beauty of a multi-club model — you can put those principles in all your clubs and speed up the learning of your players if they move between clubs."
Boehly confirmed his vision of a multi-club plan at the SALT conference in September: "We’ve talked about having a multi-club model. I would love to continue to build out the footprint.
"There are different countries where there are advantages to having a club. Red Bull does a good job. Manchester City has a big network of clubs.
"Our goal is to ensure pathways for our young stars to get on to the Chelsea pitch while getting them real game time. To do that is through another club in a really competitive league in Europe."
Earlier this month, Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali revealed what the club are looking into when it comes to the adding more clubs to their portfolio. Speaking at the Sportico Invest in Sports conference in New York, he was quizzed on multi-club ownership and what it could mean for the Blues moving forward.
Eghbali said: "There are three different reasons for doing it. One, if done well you can make money on each specific enterprise. Two, you can use data and, if thoughtful about this global market for talent that's not effectively done through a draft or extensive college farm system, you can capture, acquire, retain and monetise talent. There is a talent arbitrage opportunity that exists.
"Number three, for Chelsea it is the perfect pathway of developing talent. You don't have to spend crazy money on payroll. There are teams in the Premier League that spend 10% of what the top five or six teams spend on payroll. We hired a coach (Graham Potter) from Brighton and we think they are one of the best-run teams in the Premier League. The owner has a sports gaming/data background and spends 10% of the payroll and wins almost as much and is a very stable, mid-market, profitable club. If you apply some of that IP into developing talent we think it can be a sustainable model.
"For us, Portugal is an interesting market, the gateway to South America and European visas. The French market is interesting given the quality of the league. Africa we think is a big, big market. The [Los Angeles] Dodgers (part-owned by Boehly) have an academy and farm team in Uganda. Looking at Africa as a market, it is an untapped market of talent that is close to Europe, timezones close to Europe. We are all teetering on the surface of where this is going to go."
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