The Mastermind behind Chelsea's Transfer Strategy

Marina Granovskaia - A thread

Marina Granovskaia was born in Russia, graduated from the Moscow State University and started working in Sibneft, the oil company formerly owned by Roman Abramovich

She worked closely with Roman Abramovich looking after his various assets and interests.

In 2003 after Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea, Marina Granovskaia moved to London and helped manage his other assets and helped people in booking tickets & match boxes which grew her list of contacts in the Football community.

Also helped set up Chelsea's training ground.

2009 - The turning point

Didier Drogba's future in Chelsea was in doubt after he earned a 6 game ban for clashing with a refree during the UCL loss to Barca.

Top executives at Chelsea wanted him gone but Marina Granovskaia said Drogba is staying, taking full responsibility of

[Contd.] any future bad behaviour by him. Drogba signed a new 3 year deal and went on to win the Premier League, Fa cup and the Champions League.

From then on Marina Granovskaia took lead on Football decisions at Chelsea.

Joined the board in 2013 and became Abramovich's personal representative at Chelsea and started managing Chelsea's day to day football operations.

She later on transformed Chelsea's acquisition and selling process including the academy.

Transfer income from sale of players *quadrupled* since her arrival going from £23.6m per year to £83m per year making chelsea no.1 club in transfer income in the Premier League which helped us keep in like with the Financial fair play rules established by UEFA.

Some of her recent achievements

Selling Eden Hazard for more than £100M when he only had a year left in his contract.

Selling Oscar for £54M for an Asian transfer record.

Even more impressive transaction is the sale of Diego Costa to Atletico Madrid.

The case of Diego Costa

Bought for £34M when he was at his peak age, after 4 years the relationship with Conte brokedown.

Both the player & the manager publically said things about it, so everybody knew including potential buyers that costa will never play for Chelsea again.

[Contd] Diego Costa even reportedly said you can transfer me, but I will only sign for Atletico Madrid.

This made the situation even worse.

But against all odds Marina Granovskaia sold him back to Atletico for £59m, making a profit of £26M.

Marina Granovskaia is responsible for almost every deal chelsea does.

She was reportedly involved in 120 contracts in the summer of 2017 and conducted over 500 negotiations.

Revolution of Chelsea Academy-

Signing a partnership with Vitesse to help grow academy players.

Chelsea's academy alone earned £20.2M in 2019 from selling 4 players which further gives the first team more money to spend.

Tough Negotiator -

Marina Granovskaia has a reputation of walking away from deals if asking price is too high.

A cut throat negotiater who is widely respected in the business due to her way of doing business.

Massive Nike Deal (2016) -

Signing a 15 year uniform deal worth $73M per year meaning chelsea will earn more than a billion dollar in this period from it.

Previous deal was of £30M per year with adidas which Marina Granovskaia decided to end 6 years prematurely came as a shock.

[contd.] It cost us £40M for ending the deal prematurely but it meant we got double the money per year from the new deal.

It was also the 2nd most lucrative equipment deal in Europe at that time.

Also landed deals with Yokohama and carabao.

To summarise all of it -

•Quadrupled our transfer income.
•Made Academy profitable.
•Signed some of the most lucrative sponsor deals in Europe.
•Made chelsea a tough club to negotiate with.

End of thread.

Source:

The Athletic
Chelsea FC website
Transfermarkt website
Naarisport website
Skysports website

Likes and rts appreciated