It has been one year since the arrival of co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali (Getty) and the Chelsea owners have released a statement underlining their commitment to delivering domestic and European success after the club’s woeful 2022-23 season. During this time, the Blues spent over £600million across two transfer windows, sacking two managers in Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter with Frank Lampard returning as interim boss. The men’s team crashed out of domestic competitions at the early hurdles and were swept aside by Real Madrid at the quarter-final stage of the Champions League. However, the women’s team enjoyed more success in securing their third successive FA Cup and their fourth successive WSL title.
A statement released on Thursday read: ‘Our promise to you was to make our fans proud. We remain completely committed to the long term and sustainable success of our club and fulfilling that promise we made to you. We know the huge potential we must grow to develop Chelsea FC and it is a role we take seriously. Everybody working here is relentlessly focused on driving us forward. Clearly, for our men’s team, it has been a disappointing season and there is a lot we can and will do better. Throughout these difficult periods, our fans have supported our players and our team across the country, and Europe with unfailing loyalty. We could not be more grateful for your incredible support. The atmosphere at the Bridge when we played Dortmund will live long in our memories and serves as an important reminder of where we want to be. Our women’s team has celebrated another astonishing season, winning the Double with an unprecedented fourth successive WSL title and third successive FA Cup. Whilst we just fell short in the Champions League, the team played in front of incredible crowds at Stamford Bridge and demonstrated their quality against the best European sides.’
Mauricio Pochettino has been appointed ahead of a pivotal summer transfer window where the club’s bloated squad will be trimmed with key additions targeted. The owners believe the right infrastructure is now in place to ‘transform the squad around elite talent.’ They added: ‘For all the challenges of the past year, we are optimistic about the future. We are looking forward to welcoming Mauricio Pochettino as the head coach of our men’s team in July. We are building a modern scouting, talent identification, and recruiting infrastructure within our sporting department, led by Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, which will help us to identify and transform the squad around elite talent, a squad capable of consistently competing to win the Premier League, raise domestic cups and compete and win at the highest level in European football. We have also appointed Chris Jurasek as CEO to drive our business forward off the pitch, which in turn will make us more sustainable on the pitch. The success we are aiming for is only possible with our supporters behind us.’