Chelsea problem flagged ahead of £2bn lawsuit, Todd Boehly has a very strong opinion on it

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Chelsea chairman and shareholder Todd Boehly takes an unorthodox approach to club ownership.

The American private equity heavyweight has eschewed much of the conventional wisdom around player trading, contract structures, the commercial department and the governance of football finance.

Results – both on and off the pitch – have been mixed.

Chelsea became Club World Cup champions in the summer, trousering around £85m in prize money in the process. That followed a 4th-place finish in the Premier League and a European trophy in 2024-25.

They have taken just eight points from their opening six league matches this season, however, prompting questions about the future of Enzo Maresca, a Marmite man at Stamford Bridge just as he was at Leicester.

Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to Brighton, the club whose model and personnel are so admired by Todd Boehly and the rest of the BlueCo phalanx, was emblematic of the fact that Chelsea are not the finished article.

Meanwhile, the club still has no front-of-shirt or sleeve sponsor. Industry sources have told The Chelsea Chronicle that they have likely left £150m of revenue on the table over the last three seasons as a result.

For a club obligated under the yoke of a UEFA financial settlement for the next three seasons, that’s hardly ideal.

It was BlueCo’s industrial-scale approach to player trading that got them into this predicament. There have been some masterstrokes in the transfer market, true, but more misses than hits.

There has been no progress on the proposed new stadium or expansion of Stamford Bridge either, with Behdad Eghbali’s Clearlake Capital and a faction led by Boehly split on the subject.

Eghbali and Boehly remain the two most powerful men at the club, but it is Boehly who is far more active in the public arena.

And on one of the biggest issues of the day, the Virginia-born billionaire has already expressed a somewhat unexpected stance.

• READ MORE: The major reason why Todd Boehly does not want to sack Enzo Maresca as Chelsea manager

Chelsea namechecked in FIFPro player welfare report

Including the Club World Cup, Chelsea played 64 times in 2024-25.

With Maresca’s side still in the League Cup, the FA Cup to come and at least two extra matches in the Champions League, where they face Benfica on Wednesday, 2025-26 will be similarly relentless.

The impact of last season has been relayed in a new report from FIFPro, the global union representing the interests of players.

Chelsea were namechecked extensively in the report, with FIFPro highlighting that their 28-day off-season and 13-day pre-season were both significantly lower than the recommended minimum.

A quote from Enzo Fernandez about sweltering conditions in the US in the summer was included too, and Levi Colwill was cited as an example of a player whose development has been hindered by workload-related injuries.

A case study centred around Moises Caicedo, meanwhile, documented how the Colombia midfielder flew nearly 25,000 kilometres in 14 days during the October 2024 international break.

And finally, Estevao Willian was referenced as FIFPro analysed the ramifications of vastly increased match load for elite young players relative to past seasons.

FIFPro and the PFA last year filed a class action lawsuit against FIFA for what they see as an aggressive and grasping expansion of the match calendar in recent seasons, understood to be worth over £2bn.

Todd Boehly says players are overworked

For some time, club owners have taken every opportunity to expand the calendar. More matches equals more revenue, after all.

However, speaking at the Qatar Economic forum earlier this year, Boehly said that a rethink was needed.

“The challenge we really have is how many matches these guys are playing,” he said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

“We’re going to have to revisit what the calendar looks like and how much football they can actually play.”

Fewer fixtures would reduce the need for such a big squad. And a club’s wage bill is invariably its biggest expense, not transfer fees.

Speaking exclusively to The Chelsea Chronicle, Liverpool University football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire said: “Boehly isn’t interested in football, he’s interested in yield per customer.

“How do you maximise yield per customer? You have as many A-grade events as you can.

“Bournemouth at 12.30pm on a Saturday isn’t good for yield. It also means you have to have a large squad to have to deal with the Wednesday-Saturday cycle.

“There is a case for saying, if you reduce the size of the Premier League, yes, you’ll lose two home fixtures for good, but you can probably afford to lose two or three senior squad members because there are fewer physical demands.”