Frustration among Chelsea supporters boiled over during Wednesday\u2019s 2\u20131 defeat to Fulham as vocal protests were directed at the club\u2019s ownership. A banner calling for the departure of BlueCo was displayed at the front of the away end at Craven Cottage, but it was the chants that intensified the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
\u201cF— off Eghbali, you\u2019re not wanted here,\u201d rang around the away end, followed by a chorus of \u201cWe don\u2019t care about Clearlake, because they don\u2019t care about us.\u201d Those in attendance did not wait for a formal demonstration; a formal protest has already been scheduled for later this month.<\/p>\n
Eghbali, the figurehead of majority shareholders Clearlake Capital, was present in the stands, slumped in his seat alongside new manager Liam Rosenior and recruitment director Sam Jewell. The ownership group, formally named BlueCo, comprises multiple parties. Private equity firm Clearlake Capital owns over 60% of Chelsea\u2019s shares. The remaining shares were divided between minority investors Mark Walter, Hansj\u00f6rg Wyss and Todd Boehly, the latter of whom fronted the bid and often unfairly sees his name used to define Chelsea\u2019s ownership.<\/p>\n
While Boehly took charge of the early months of BlueCo\u2019s reign in 2022, the American is no longer in control of Chelsea\u2019s direction, which is steered by Eghbali and co-sporting directors Winstanley and Stewart. Since Boehly\u2019s scattergun approach to the 2022 summer transfer window, Chelsea have changed path and now focus on signing young, high-potential players in the hope of either developing a superstar or cashing in for profit.<\/p>\n
Supporter anger has been fuelled by high player turnover, excessive spending and a lack of on-field success, alongside accusations of overbearing leadership. A lack of senior leadership in the squad has been criticised by fans, rivals and even Maresca, and the ownership\u2019s refusal to budge from their divisive approach has irked a large number of supporters.<\/p>\n
Rosenior faces the immediate challenge of convincing the fanbase to engage with the project. He becomes the fifth permanent manager tasked with trying to realise BlueCo\u2019s vision as tensions between supporters and ownership remain high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protests erupted as Chelsea lost 2\u20131 at Fulham, with chants targeting Eghbali and BlueCo’s approach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1089,1379,1087],"class_list":["post-5840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-chelsea-struggles","tag-club-structure","tag-coaching-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}