Up till now, it could be assumed that the Chelsea board was working on the Maurizio Sarri deal. Someone slipped if the owner himself has to step in.
Bosses are simply people really. Do the job they ask of you and they will be pleased. Fail at it or neglect to do it, forcing them to do it themselves, and they are furious human beings on a war path.
That is about where Chelsea is right now. The board, likely with Roman Abramovich’s personal blessing, was told to go out into the world and find a manager. They found Maurizio Sarri. The board was then told to acquire his services before preseason. The board likely nodded vigorously and said it will be done. Fast forward to the day before preseason officially starts and Sarri is still under a Napoli contract despite being replaced and Antonio Conte is still the Chelsea manager.
So, according to reports, that is when Abramovich opened is secret treasure vault, put on his yachting glove and said “I’ll do it myself”. He is supposedly meeting directly with Napoli’s owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis, to solve the Sarri situation the club finds itself in. The particulars are murky and mixed, but the one constant is that the two owners are meeting.
That is all fine and good on paper. If the owner is meeting with the other owner to finally solve the deal, it means all involved are serious about moving on. But, going back to the earlier point about a boss having to do the job for an employee, there is little good that will come out of this for those who failed.
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Abramovich hired or at least approved everyone on the board to do a job. They are experts in their fields and should be able to do their jobs with minimum oversight. But the Sarri situation has shown their failures to the owner and he will be less than pleased with their performance.
The owner has been known to drop the ax quickly before. Especially when it comes to managers. But the board has remained relatively safe throughout its tenure. That may change quickly now that Abramovich has to do their job for them. The trust he had in the board is now broken and may be irredeemable. That could mean he swings the ax their way and brings in someone who will actually do their job.
To add to Abramovich’s fury, he has other issues to deal with himself. He is still not allowed in England where his club resides. Now more than ever, he needed the board to be autonomous. Their failure not only affects themselves and the club, but Abramovich personally.
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Wherever Abramovich and Laurentiis are currently meeting is a side note to what is really going on. The deal is much more likely to get done when the man with the pocket book is speaking directly to the man looking for the check. But the board will be secluded, somewhere in the world, waiting for Abramovich to cut the door down while screaming “here’s Roman!” Someone should and probably will lose their job over this whole fiasco. All because they broke the bond between themselves and the owner.