Chelsea are set to appoint Monaco technical director Laurence Stewart as part of plans to build a new-look transfer ‘think tank’ to oversee player recruitment.
New co-owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake are restructuring the club and Stewart will form part of a group who will decide transfer strategy.
As part of the new set-up, Chelsea are having talks with Brighton’s head of recruitment Paul Winstanley.
The Blues have already brought in Graham Potter’s recruitment analyst Kyle Macaulay from Brighton and are also appointing Southampton’s Joe Shields as director of recruitment.
Stewart, Macaulay, Shields and Winstanley will form part of the ‘think tank’, which is part of a strategy to implement a collaborative structure instead of having a big-name sporting director.
Former RB Leipzig technical director Christopher Vivell has been heavily linked with a move to Stamford Bridge but the club have played down suggestions he could join. Boehly is currently interim sporting director and, with Clearlake Capital co-owners Behdad Eghbali and Jose Feliciano, oversaw a world-record transfer spend of more than £270million in the summer.
They will remain heavily involved at Chelsea but plan to take a step back on transfers to allow the specialists to do their work.
Boehly has been impressed by the Red Bull football group, who own Leipzig and Salzburg, who Chelsea face in the Champions League tonight. The American wants to build his own multi-club network which would help the Blues give their young players top-level experience elsewhere in Europe and help get around work permit issues.
An agreement is in place for Stewart, who has worked within the Red Bull network at Leipzig, and also at Everton, Manchester City and the FA. Stewart also has experience of a multi-club at Monaco, who own Belgian side Cercle Brugge.
Macauley impressed Chelsea with his connections to agents and his expertise of modern scouting methods.
Shields will join after a period of gardening leave following his departure from Southampton.
Chelsea’s new transfer structure is coming together as planned ahead of the World Cup and they are working to hire two more senior football executives in the coming weeks.
Boehly also want to press ahead with plans to build a satellite of clubs and has tried to buy French sides Lyon and Sochaux, and Portuguese first division club Portimonense.
Speaking ahead of tonight’s game against Salzburg, new Chelsea head coach Potter believes the Red Bull model could be successfully replicated in England.
“Essentially it is an idea and everybody is aligned toward that idea,” he said. “Whatever the name is, you can certainly replicate the philosophical idea behind it.”
