Chelsea are reportedly ‘intensifying talks’ to ‘buy a stake’ in Ligue 1 club Strasbourg after UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin hinted at a rule change.
Todd Boehly’s consortium became the new owners of Chelsea ahead of the 2022/23 campaign. They have spent heavily since then as over £500m has been invested into strengthening the Premier League club’s squad.
The American businessman has grand plans and he revealed last September that he wants a “multi-club model” that would allow Chelsea to loan their young players to affiliated clubs to “put their development in someone else’s hands”.
“We’ve talked about having a multi-club model,” Boehly told the Salt Conference, “I would love to continue to build out the footprint.
“I think the challenge that Chelsea has now, or one of them, is that when you have 18-, 19-, 20-year-old superstars, you can loan them out to other clubs but you put their development in someone else’s hands.
“To me, the way to do that is through another club somewhere in a really competitive league in Europe.”
Boehly may soon get his wish. The Guardian are reporting that Cheslsea’s ‘talks’ with Ligue 1 club Strasbourg have ‘intensified’.
The Blues have ‘stepped up their interest in buying a stake’ in the French club. This is after ‘Ceferin opened the door to relaxing restrictions on clubs with the same owner playing in the same European competitions’.
Ceferin recently revealed that “five or six owners want to buy another club”.
“We’ve had five or six owners of clubs who want to buy another club. We have to see what to do,” Ceferin told Gary Neville’s The Overlap YouTube channel.
“We shouldn’t just say no for the investments for multi-club ownership, but we have to see what kind of rules we set in that case, because the rules have to be strict.
“From one point of view it’s true if you are the owner of two clubs and they play in the same competition you can say to one club to lose because you want the other to win.
“But for you, as a football player, do you think it’s so easy to do that, to tell a coach, lose the match because the other wants to win?”
The report from The Guardian adds Marc Keller (Strasbourg’s president) has confirmed that he has been in talks with Boehly over a ‘full or partial sale’.
They add: ‘It is understood that Strasbourg, who are 15th in Ligue 1 and clear of the relegation zone only on goal difference, have been looking for…
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