There are two ways to look at Chelsea not signing a front-of-shirt sponsorship deal before the start of the season. You could view it as a failure, with companies not wanting to fork out £45million-plus for the privilege of being in prime position on their kits following a disappointing Premier League campaign in 2023-24, buoyed by the narrative that the club’s owners, Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, don’t know what they are doing.
The alternative view, echoed within their home stadium Stamford Bridge, is that Chelsea rolled the dice and gambled on their sporting performance improving, therefore rendering it foolish to enter a long-term deal with a potential partner in the summer when the front-of-shirt value could be sold for a much bigger fee just a few months later. In this case, both can be true, yet it’s evident no company was willing to pay what Chelsea were asking for, otherwise the players would be sporting some brand’s logo on their chests already. One opportunistic company even shared a press release at the beginning of November, announcing the ‘exclusive news’ it had secured a deal to become Chelsea’s new front-of-shirt partner for the rest of the season. When challenged on the fact this simply wasn’t true, the firm, which will remain nameless, thought it would still be a good story for media outlets to run.
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