When Chelsea won the FIFA Club World Cup in 2021, they earned around £3.5m in prize money. So far in 2025? Add a zero. Then add another £20m or so for your troubles.
For six hours of football, Gianni Infantino has turned on the money hose and sprayed Chelsea with, according to The Chelsea Chronicle’s analysis, somewhere in the region of £50m.
For context, that’s more than treble what Enzo Maresca’s side earned for going all the way in the Europa Conference League last season, and it goes to show that FIFA are attempting to make the new quadrennial 32-team Club World Cup an illustrious competition by brute force.
It’s a competition which insists upon itself. Unlike the Champions League, it doesn’t have the best part of a century of history and organic mythos behind it, so Infantino has instead cosied up to Donald Trump, Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth, and a gaggle of influencers half his age at best for the glitz, glamour and cold, hard cash.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund – owners of Newcastle United – are underwriting the Club World Cup TV deal to the tune of around £750m through an investment in DAZN via their SURJ sports investment offshoot. That’s where the Club World Cup prize money has come from, and Infantino has played lapdog to Trump to try and secure concessions on the tax that Chelsea and their peers will pay on their winnings.
In lieu of a willing poster boy for the tournament meanwhile, FIFA’s president appears to have taken that mantle for himself. It has been an undignified spectacle seeing the 55-year-old court YouTubers, twerk for sponsors, and generally be a Star-Spangled Spanner for the all-American tournament.
Still, who really cares? Ultimately, Chelsea could become world champions for the second time in their history and bank close to £100m for doing so. No wonder that Todd Boehly, who will be in the directors’ box for Saturday morning’s quarter-final against Palmeiras, has thrown his weight behind it.
However, the event itself has exposed a fault line in the philosophy of Chelsea’s ownership.
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Has Todd Boehly changed his mind about the finances behind Chelsea’s fixture congestion?
In football finance, the received wisdom has long been that more matches equals more revenue. You sell more tickets at Stamford Bridge, have more to offer broadcasters in TV deal negotiations, more eyeballs on your sponsors and so on.
Initially, it seemed like Boehly was in this camp. Chelsea fans will remember his suggestion for a Premier League All-Stars game and a bottom-four play-off tournament, for instance. Of the new expanded Champions League format, the private equity billionaire has been supportive too. The Club World Cup? He seems to think it’s the business as well.
However, there seems to be some conflict within Boehly too. Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum earlier this year, he highlighted the demands of the bulging fixture calendar for his Chelsea squad.
“The challenge we really have is how many matches these guys are playing. The calendar’s really tight and they put in so much effort and energy, and the injuries are continuing to go up and up and up. We’re going to have to revisit what the calendar looks like and how much football they can actually play.”
Todd Boehly, Qatar Economic Forum
He’s spot-on here, if ostensibly a little confused about whether he wants more or fewer matches.
Last season, 20 Chelsea players suffered non-contact injuries that ruled them out for at least one game.
Time is money. In Boehly’s analysis, a player on the treatment table is no use, especially in the wider context of Chelsea’s wage bill, which stood at £338m in the last published financial year.
Since UEFA introduced Financial Fair Play in 2011-12, Chelsea have paid players and staff £3.4bn. Why so much? Partly because of the arms race in the wage market kickstarted by Roman Abramovich, but also because of the demands of the calendar. It is, as they say, a squad game these days.
So, this might be why Boehly is either A) conflicted or B) confused. On the one hand, more games equals more money. On the other, more games equals more injuries and more big salaries to play.
The solution, one which is brought up by nearly every football finance expert or consultant The Chelsea Chronicle speaks to, is fewer matches, but more high-quality matches.
Extra Champions League matches? No problem. Ker-ching. Extra Carabao Cup matches? Err, no thanks.
Some have suggested that cutting the Premier League to 18 teams could be an option, just as was presented by Manchester United and Liverpool in their failed Project Big Picture bid in 2020.
International football, as far as Chelsea’s owners are concerned, could easily be on the chopping block, but then you run the risk of upsetting Daddy Infantino, who could then turn off that lovely Club World Cup money hose.
It’s a tangled web, but something has got to give, as far as Boehly and Clearlake are concerned, at least.
Unless they succeed in changing the very architecture of the game – the calendar, PSR, commercialisation, direct-to-consumer streaming and so on – their £4.25bn investment in West London simply won’t make sense.
Mark Walter to turn attention away from Chelsea after LA Lakers takeover
Elsewhere on Planet BlueCo, Chelsea co-owner and Boehly’s right-hand man Mark Walter is about to pull off the biggest-value sports takeover of all time.
The LA Lakers are set to come under his majority control in a deal which values the NBA franchise, in whom Boehly is also a shareholder, at £7.5bn.
But what does this mean for Walter’s business at Stamford Bridge? And how might the precedent that the valuation itself sets affect Chelsea in years to come?
“Mark Walter already has several US franchises and, if you’ve just put down $10bn, that’s where your focus is going to be,” says University of Liverpool football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to The Chelsea Chronicle.
“I don’t know whether Boehly will at some point reach Chelsea fatigue because there is a lot of noise around that club. My understanding is that Eghbali is pulling the strings and Boehly is the mouthpiece at Stamford Bridge in any case.
“So I don’t see Walter’s expansion of the Lakers project as having a huge influence at Chelsea either positive or negative, but it raises some interesting questions about the valuation and where his time will be spent.”
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