Todd Boehly is interested in hiring Red Bull Salzburg chief Christoph Freund as Chelsea ’s new sporting director.
Chelsea chiefs Boehly and Behdad Eghbali are pushing ahead with their plans to hire someone to oversee the club’s strategy before the World Cup kicks off in Qatar in November. Salzburg director Freund is one of the names in the frame, along with Paris Saint-Germain advisor Luis Campos and former Liverpool sporting director Michael Edwards.
Freund, 45, was one of the key figures in persuading Erling Haaland to join Salzburg from Molde for just €8million back in August 2018. “It was a very long process for Erling,” he told Goal two years ago. “We first noticed him in 2016 at a game for the Norwegian under-16 national team.”
Boehly cleared out Chelsea’s backroom staff upon taking over the club from Roman Abramovich in May. After sacking Marina Granovskaia and Petr Cech, Boehly acted as interim sporting director during an event-filled summer transfer window.
The American billionaire is now interested in following the prevailing trend in football ownership by pursuing a multi-club model, like the Red Bull Group and City Football Group. “We've talked about having a multi-club model,” Boehly said at the SALT conference in New York this week.
“I think there's different countries where there's advantages to having a club. Red Bull have Salzburg and Leipzig in the Champions League. I want to continue building out the footprint. I think there's different countries where there's advantages to having a club. We know people and human capital. We understand game plans and strategies. We're not expecting to be the football experts to find the best talent, we are going to put those people in place.
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“The challenge that Chelsea has, when you have 18, 19, 20-year-old superstars, you can loan them out to clubs, but you put their development in someone else's hands. Our goal is to make sure we can show pathways for our young superstars to get onto the Chelsea pitch while getting them real game time. The way to do that is through another club in a really competitive league in Europe.”
The move fits in with Boehly’s decision to sack Thomas Tuchel and appoint former Brighton manager Graham Potter last week. Potter brought with him five members of his staff from the Seagulls and Boehly is now trying to fill the overarching role above the head coach.
Campos is also of interest, having developed a fine reputation for building squads. The 58-year-old assembled the Ligue 1-winning Lille side before joining PSG this summer to help the club begin a new era under Christophe Galtier.
Edwards is another person of interest after having a major influence in Liverpool’s recent success. But having left Jurgen Klopp’s side earlier in the year, he is taking a sabbatical and is understood to be reluctant to return to full-time employment yet.
