Chelsea reward recruitment team with new long-term contracts after Club World Cup success | OneFootball

Chelsea have made a stunning move to tie their leadership team to new long-term contracts following the club’s remarkable success last season.

According to the Telegraph, the Blues have handed bumper six-year contract extensions to co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart as well as recruitment chiefs Joe Shields and Sam Jewell.

The new deals will run until 2031. It’s a massive show of faith and confidence in the quartet’s vision and the progress the club has made under their guidance.

Chelsea are using the same contract blueprint they apply to players and coaching staff.

The extended contracts are heavily performance-based, which aligns with the club’s philosophy of rewarding success and results.

The quartet were initially tied to the club until 2028, but they now have a tenure that matches the length of deals often handed to the club’s talented additions.

Since the arrival of Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly in 2022, Chelsea have invested north of £2 billion in transfers, while recouping around £900 million through sales.

Winstanley and Stewart took up their co-sporting director roles in January 2023 and orchestrated a massive shift in the club’s recruitment strategy alongside Shields.

The idea is to stockpile the most promising young talents around the world and tie them to long-term deals. They’ve also developed the academy and reshaped the women’s team.

Jewell joined the bandwagon a year after Winstanley and Stewart, bringing his experience and expertise to the operation, which has become the envy of most Premier League clubs.

After a rocky start to life at Chelsea, the project has finally started delivering positive results.

Chelsea qualified for the Champions League and won the UEFA Europa Conference League and the newly formatted FIFA Club World Cup in the United States last season.