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Chelsea to build global football conglomerate

Chelsea's new owners are keen to build a multi-club ownership group, emulating the example set by Manchester City's City Football Group.

They would like to buy clubs in other European football leagues, highlighting Belgium and Portugal as targets.  They see it as a better arrangement than loaning developing young stars out to other clubs where they have less control.   Outsourcing player development to unaffiliated clubs created too much stagnation and wastage. New FIFA loan restrictions also mean this approach is no longer feasible on such a large scale.

Why Portugal? It would carry the cultural benefit of being the ideal place to store any talented Brazilians the club might buy who are not quite ready to shine at Stamford Bridge. It’s already a well-established entry point for young Brazilians looking to make careers in Europe, and Benfica, Porto and Sporting Lisbon have all done well financially by facilitating their journeys.

However, some of new owner Todd Boehly's ideas to boost Premier League revenues, and spread money down the pyramid, have gone down less well, based as they are on rather different American experience.

The super star match in US baseball brings together teams from the two different (American and National) leagues.   The All-Star game in Los Angeles this year made $200m over two days. 

Boehly proposes a North v. South all-star match for England.   Quite how north and south would be defined in such a contest is unclear.   Top clubs would also not be keen on their leading players being obliged to play in another match that could end in injury.

He also proposes a relegation tournament between the bottom four clubs.  In the past there have been play offs involving the top second division sides as well, but these were fraught occasions, although the formula is used in Scotland.

The real point here is not the specific proposals.  What it underlines is that Boehly and Clearlake are not here to be idle passengers on the Premier League train. They have big ideas and one of their key priorities is to find new ways to raise the revenues of the entire competition.


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