Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly has explained a difference in ‘vision’ was at the heart of his decision to sack former Blues manager Thomas Tuchel.
Boehly was speaking at SALT Conference in New York at the same time Graham Potter met the media ahead of his side’s Champions League clash with RB Salzburg.
In that public event, Boehly explained both his respect for Tuchel but why he ultimately opted to sack him 100 days after completing the purchase of the club.
“I think Tuchel is obviously extremely talented,” Boehly began saying at the panel event.
“He is someone who has had great success at Chelsea. Our vision for the club was to find a manager who really wanted to collaborate with us.
“There’s a lot of walls to break down at Chelsea. Before, the first team and the academy didn’t really share data or a lot of information about where the top players were coming from. Our goal is to really bring the first team and academy together.
“The reality of the decision was that we weren’t sure that Thomas saw it the same way that we saw it. No one is right or wrong, we just didn’t have a shared vision for the future. It wasn’t about Zagreb.
“It was about a shared vision of what we wanted for Chelsea Football Club to look like. It wasn’t a decision that was made as a result of a single win or loss. It was a decision about what we thought was the right vision for the club.”
At the event, Boehly would go on to explain his ideas for new formats in English football including relegation play-offs and an all-star North versus South match.
It was part of ways to keep the English Football League (EFL) and wider football pyramid funded while creating revenues for club owners in the Premier League.
Alongside that, he revealed his admiration for club networks pioneered at Manchester City and RB Leipzig and Salzburg. As he is ready to scrap Chelsea’s extensive use of loanees, he said the club could begin to buy up clubs across Europe and the world to emulate City Football Group and Red Bull.
Boehly said: “We’ve talked about having a multi-club model. I think there’s different countries where there’s advantages to having a club. Red Bull have Salzburg and Leipzig in the Champions League. I want to continue building out the footprint. I think there’s different countries where there’s advantages to having a club.
“We know people and human capital. We understand game plans and strategies. We’re not expecting to be the football experts to find the best talent, we are going to put those people in place.
“The challenge that Chelsea has, when you have 18, 19, 20-year-old superstars, you can loan them out to clubs, but you put their development in someone else’s hands.
“Our goal is to make sure we can show pathways for our young superstars to get onto the Chelsea pitch while getting them real game time. The way to do that is through another club in a really competitive league in Europe.”
