Todd Boehly makes honest admission over his Chelsea 'mistakes'

Todd Boehly has confessed he has made ‘mistakes’ during a turbulent 12 months at the Chelsea helm.

The charismatic American businessman fronted Clearlake’s takeover last year after Roman Abramovich was forced to end his 19-year and ultra-successful ownership of the club.

Boehly has since embarked on an unprecedented spending spree on new players, few of which, if any, have made positive impacts, sacked two managers, including the popular Thomas Tuchel, and will end his first full campaign in English football without a trophy and a team with no European football to look forward to next season.

The search for a new permanent manager is ongoing, with Julian Nagelsmann and Mauricio Pochettino the facourites to succeed interim boss Frank Lampard who has been unable to steady the ship and presided over four successive defeat and Champions League elimination.

Boehly initially curried favour with Chelsea fans by attempting to recreate and surpass the sort of ambitious spending that characterised Abramovich’s tenure, but optimism has given way to mass frustration which boiled over during last weekend’s defeat at home against Brighton when he was confronted by several angry fans in the stands.

According to Bloomberg, Boehly confessed he had been far from faultless while speaking to, among others, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and investment banker Anthony Gutman during a private event at Stamford Bridge on Thursday at which he spelled out his long-term vision for the club.

One of the more eye-catching elements of Boehly’s regime so far has been the way in which Chelsea have got around spending rules by amortising transfer ees over the duration of longer contracts, with a number of signings handed deals as long as eight-and-a-half years.

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But UEFA are set to remove that loophole ahead of the summer window by limiting the length of contracts, and Spurs chairman Daniel Levy believes those changes and others will have a significant impact on the way clubs operate.

‘Well firstly there are new rules coming into effect this season, UEFA rules, where sustainability is going to become much more paramount in people’s minds,’ said the Spurs chief in an interview with Cambridge Union that was recorded on March 14.

‘So you’ll be limited in the amount you can spend on wages and transfer fees, effectively the amortisation element, as a percentage of your total turnover.

‘So starting off at 90% and over three years it is going down to 70%. The impact of that is effectively some form of wage control.

‘So I think even though clubs have been spending very heavily – and you talk about someone like Chelsea – now the new rules come into effect this summer, I think you’ll find that, regardless of who is the owner, it’s going to have quite an impact on the financing of football.’

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