Chelsea women sale would fracture ‘one club’ mentality – and could hurt in long run

The news Chelsea are willing to sell a segment of their women’s team speaks for many things, but it also shatters the ‘one club’ approach that has defined them.

The highly successful Women’s Super League (WSL) side are supposedly valued at $200million (£159.3m) by Chelsea’s owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake, with the hierarchy open to selling a minority stake. There has not been much clarity as to the exact details of the proposal, but we have explained everything we know about the situation here. However, their openness to parting with even a fraction of the women’s team is a neat encapsulation of their general approach to owning Chelsea, where financial jockeying has often seemed the order of the day.

The women’s team, with Emma Hayes as their figurehead, has been the most successful element of Chelsea since the takeover at the end of May 2022. In the only completed season since then, they won the league title and FA Cup, and they may make it five league titles in a row this Saturday as the WSL season wraps up. They have firmly established themselves as the dominant team in England.

Given the clear capabilities of those already running the women’s team, Clearlake’s influence on that side of the business has been much more muted compared to the wholesale changes on the men’s side. There has been clear financial backing, with close to £1million spent on transfer fees over the past two windows, a significant figure in the women’s market. But generally, the ownership has seemed happy to be pretty hands-off. Selling a stake in the team would represent a big change to that approach.

The exact direction that change would take is unclear. There would be the financial boost, which Clearlake say would be dedicated to improving the infrastructure around the women’s team. But given the billion pounds spent on transfer fees on the men’s side, the idea that a part of the women’s side would have to be sold off to generate cash rings hollow. After all, the amount raised would likely be the equivalent of a handful of Brazilian teenage footballers.

Then there is the influence on the club generated by whoever owns a stake in it. This is something that has the potential to be beneficial for certain teams who are investing in their women’s side for the first time, for example. But Chelsea are one of the best-run women’s teams in the world. There’s a level of institutional knowledge that extends far beyond the departing Emma Hayes. If they were not, Clearlake’s valuation would be entirely unrealistic. The possibility that there is genuinely some individual or group whose expertise would be able to justify what would be lost by selling part of the team is hard to believe.

That is because the sale of a stake would be a clear crack in the ‘one club’ mentality that Chelsea have embraced. Their men’s, women’s and academy teams are united under one banner.

Last week at the club’s awards evening, Emma Hayes became the first woman to be immortalised on the Shed Wall, a part of Stamford Bridge which pays tribute to the club’s trailblazers. Kingsmeadow, Chelsea women’s main home, is decorated with images of both the women’s team and the academy team, while cross-promotion between all three pillars of the club is common. Selling part of the women’s team would directly contradict the idea that Chelsea are truly ‘one club’, with echoes of the situation at Lyon where the women’s team now have a different majority owner.

While the concept may be unique, the lack of clarity around the situation has become depressingly familiar when it comes to Clearlake’s financial dealings. You are far more likely to have heard Boehly’s commentary on running Chelsea if you are a delegate at an exclusive global business event than if you are a fan. It creates a sense of uncertainty. This is particularly damaging within women’s football where clubs’ successes are particularly fragile as part of a new and rapidly changing market.

Chelsea have room to be worth more in the future (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

That rapid change is also why the business aspect seems naive. The valuation of $200m for Chelsea might seem high compared to other recent sales of women’s clubs, but everything points to women’s football as one of the world’s fastest-growing sports markets. Why lock in losing part of what is potentially the high-growth element of your business when you have no sense of where exactly the market is?

Given that, the concern is that what Clearlake are predominantly interested in is not drumming up cash for the women’s side, but extracting value from one of the most successful elements of the club. The on-pitch struggles of the men’s team have made it transparent that they have not been able to exploit the business inefficiencies within football that they thought were there. The track record does not inspire confidence in their attempts to do the same with the women’s team.

So far, the women’s team has been isolated from the financial manoeuvrings of the ownership. That looks like it will not be the case for much longer.

(Top photo: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)