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Marina Granovskaia returns to Chelsea after Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital takeover Over the past month, Marina Granovskaia has visited Chelsea twice, but the club’s former director wasn’t invited by Clearlake Capital or Todd Boehly either time.
On Saturday night, Chelsea held a “legends of Europe” match in memory of Gianluca Vialli, pitting some of the club’s Champions League champions from 2012 against a Bayern Munich squad.
For the game, numerous previous players and employees were welcomed back, and it’s believed Granovskaia traveled as a friend’s guest rather than being requested by Clearlake or Boehly.
Numerous spectators at the game noticed Granovskaia seated in the West Stand’s middle tier, and Telegraph Sport has confirmed that it was she.
Additionally, it has come to light that Granovskaia attended the Game4Ukraine charity match at the beginning of August and is thought to have bought general admission tickets there.
The club’s owners did not invite Granovskaia on either occasion, and Chelsea has stated that they have not hosted her at Stamford Bridge since she left.
End of June of last year saw the announcement of Granovskaia’s resignation from Chelsea, less than a month after Clearlake and Boehly acquired the team from previous owner Roman Abramovich.
Many former players still think highly of her, as seen by Didier Drogba’s tribute to Granovskaia at the start of the previous campaign.
Last year, Drogba wrote on Instagram, “First of all, I want to thank Marina for always supporting me in the good moments and even the difficult moments at the club, when most people were criticizing me for saying loudly (maybe even a little too loudly in fact) and clearly what I felt was unfair (Champions League CFC v Barcelona 2009).”
“Only Marina and a small group of individuals recognized it as coming from someone who cared about the team, the emblem, and the supporters. She has done more for this club than is apparent to outsiders. She put in a lot of effort over the course of 19 years to create a top-tier club and keep the blue flag flying proudly in the football globe.
Chelsea won the whole set of championships during Granovskaia’s tenure at the organization, including the Champions League, Premier League, Europa League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Super Cup, and Club World Cup. In 2021, she was honored with the Golden Boy award for “Best Club Director in European Football.”
Granovskaia, who, according to the club’s website, “acted as a representative of the owner at the club and in support of the board of directors” since 2010, “effectively ran Chelsea for Abramovich during his final years of ownership,” worked on the club’s sale to Clearlake and Boehly.
Granovskaia, a Russian-Canadian with a degree from Moscow State University who began working for Abramovich at Sibneft, the oil firm he owned at the time, in 1997, relocated to England shortly after Abramovich acquired Chelsea in 2003, and she joined the club’s plc and football club boards in 2013.
