2023-12-27 14:53:05
In an interview given on Tuesday night, the 26th, Javier Milei said a phrase that made noise in the Argentine soccer scene. The president was talking regarding the inclusion of Sports Joint Stock Companies in the DNU presented by the Executive and noted in passing: “As soon as the decree came out, Chelsea was interested in investing in Argentina.”
“I don’t need to say that Argentina is the cradle of cracks. Understood as a business, there is a lot of business to be done with the Argentine case. Suddenly it might be representing investments of more than a billion dollars in a very short period of time,” The president said to defend the decree, in dialogue with LN+.
The name of the club that Milei highlighted is not just any one. It is one of the heaviest wallets in the Premier League, which in the last year and a half has been spending millions on players and coaches to remain among the elite of world football.
Until February 2022, Chelsea was the club of Roman Abramovich, the billionaire whose fortune is estimated at $9 billion. The one born in Saratov 57 years ago landed in English football in 2003 with his fortune made in oil wells and through successes and mistakes he managed to transform a small team from London into a serious contender on a global level.
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The President assured that Chelsea is interested in investing in the country.
He won the Premier in 2005 and it was his second title in the First Division following 50 years, and then four more titles followed: 2006, 2010, 2015, 2017. In the midst of that golden era, he achieved the record for the most games without losing at home, in their legendary Stanford Bridge stadium: 86 games (62 wins and 24 draws, from February 21, 2004 to October 26, 2008.
But the joys also went beyond the limits of the British island: under Abramovich’s legacy, Chelsea won two Champions Leagues (2012 and 2021), two Europa Leagues (2013 and 2019) and the 2021 Club World Cup, played in February 2022.
Chelsea, champion of the Club World Cup in February 2022, before the deblacle. Photo: Giuseppe CACACE / AFP.
A few days following that conquest in the Club World Cup, beating Palmeiras in the final, the world woke up early with news that would change the geopolitical map of the world and the life of the team in the blue shirt: February 24, 2022 troops The Russians invaded Ukraine, starting a war that still persists.
Putin’s decision ended up dragging with him what in England were called “Russian oligarchs”, businessmen with direct connections to Moscow, who financed the actions of the Soviet regime. It took Abramovich just ten days to sell his London house and separate himself from Chelsea, which passed into the hands of a trust that began looking for a new owner.
In this context, the arrival of the American Todd Boehly took place, who at the head of the BlueCo investment group and following approval from the British Government, in May 2022 became the new owner of Chelsea in exchange for 4,971 million dollars. It is the same firm that owns Racing de Strasbourg, in the middle of the Ligue 1 table in France.
Boehly, 50, is also a wealthy man: he has a fortune valued at $4.5 billion according to Forbes. And he had already tried to take over Chelsea in 2018 but his offer of $2.5 billion was not enough. After Abramovich’s departure, he doubled that offer thanks to his union with the investment fund Clearlake Capital, the Swiss Hansjörg Wyss and Mark Walter, his partner in two other sports franchises that are immense in the United States and the world, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Lakers.
Enzo Fernández still did not meet expectations. Photo: EFE/EPA/ISABEL INFANTES.
If money doesn’t bring happiness, much less does it do so in football. The Boehly era has not quite started at Chelsea, with very poor results in sporting terms. “I don’t recognize my club,” summarized Didier Drogba, the team’s former star in Abramovich’s time.
In its first season with its new owners, Chelsea invested more than 700 million dollars in reinforcements but ended up eliminated from all the competitions it played in and finished 11th in the Premier, outside of all the cups of this cycle. One of the record signings was that of Enzo Fernández, in January, for 100 million dollars and following breaking it at the World Cup in Qatar. The former River, Defensa y Justicia and Benfica might not do much in a broken, chaotic and directionless team.
Mauricio Pochettino, Chelsea manager who is in 11th place in the Premier. Photo: AP Photo/Francois Mori.
The other Argentine who joined Chelsea this season is Mauricio Pochettino, with the mission of redirecting a squad that was changing managers as a sign of the lack of leadership. Tuchel, champion of the 2021 Champions League, was kicked out in the group stage of the 2022 edition. The German was followed by Graham Potter and Frank Lampard, all with red numbers.
Although he showed signs of greater calm and improvement, the bad streak also continues with the coach born in Murphy, Santa Fe. He is in 11th place in the Premier, eight points from the Europa League positions, and fourteen of the chance to play in the Champions League, a chimera at this point in the year when half of the competition has been played.
No one can change the course of Chelsea, not even the Ecuadorian Moisés Caicedo who joined the blue team for 133 million euros to become the most expensive transfer in the history of the Premier. A business that for now is making a loss, and in which American tycoons seem intent on looking for new alternatives.
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