Burnley
Blackburn Rovers
Coventry City
Derby County
Leeds United
Luton Town
Middlesbrough
Millwall
Norwich City
Portsmouth
Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield United
QPR
Much has been said about the gulf in quality between the Premier League and the Championship, but away from the pitch, it seems supporters in the top flight are in need of a little perspective, too.
The Championship is an incredible league when it comes to football, with a highly competitive division, entertaining gameplay, and unpredictable results making it one of the top divisions in the world.
While some neutrals bemoan the fact that teams like Leeds United, Burnley, and Sheffield United are dominating once again, there are still surprise stories like Sunderland to keep everyone on their toes.
Still, looking upwards at the Premier League, there are plenty of clubs in crisis. And yet, one of the most vocal sets of supporters right now perhaps doesn’t actually have a right to be unhappy about anything at all.
Chelsea supporters protest Todd Boehly ownership
There has been a growing sense of unrest around Chelsea Football Club for a while now, with the negative feels largely directed at the club’s owner, Todd Boehly.
Supporters of the club feel Boehly is mismanaging Chelsea from the top down, with wildly dangerous financial decisions, poor calls on personnel, and a disillusionment when it comes to the club’s approach to affairs on and off the pitch.
Fans flocked to protest the current ownership before and after Chelsea’s 4-0 win over Southampton on Tuesday night, with claims that Boehly is ‘killing’ the football club.
| Statistic | Under Todd Boehly |
| Players signed | 40 |
| Money spent | £1.09bn |
| Weekly payroll | £3.11m |
| Trophies won | 0 |
It is worth noting, however, that Boehly’s tenure has seen Chelsea invest over £1bn in playing staff since 2022. Whether those investments have been the right ones or not, is another matter, but the fact is, Chelsea fans cannot claim Boehly isn’t backing the club to succeed.
A lot of EFL clubs have experienced true crisis over the years, some are still in it
The folks at the Second Tier podcast put everything into perspective with just one post on Twitter/X, thankfully, by highlighting the fact that a number of clubs in the EFL are in far worse states than Chelsea, and some even have almost no hope of getting out of their respective messes.
They wrote: “They’re not ‘killing’ your club. Reading have been on the brink for the last three years. Coventry City had to play home games in other towns/cities for multiple seasons. Derby County nearly went out of business 3 years ago.
“Birmingham spent several years not knowing who actually owned the club. West Brom had to take out loans just to keep the lights on at the club. Sheffield Wednesday have an owner constantly undermining success with bizarre comments and not paying bills on time.
“Blackburn Rovers have had two managers leave in a year because of a lack of ambition. Cardiff are in £100m worth of debt. Fans of the ‘big 6’ clubs are so out of touch.”
Indeed, we saw Sheffield Wednesday fans criticise Dejphon Chansiri just this week, with ticket prices for the Steel City derby lambasted as being ‘scandalous’ and showing the owner’s ‘greed’ by charging £54 for seats in the South Stand for that game.
As the Second Tier podcast mentioned, Blackburn Rovers’ financial situation is precarious to say the least, and their owners have very publicly been called out for not backing a long line of managers.
It’s time that fans of clubs in the Premier League — especially well-established, fairly comfortable ones like Chelsea — look around them and realise that having an owner who is willing to spend over £1bn on the playing squad is nowhere near a crisis situation.
Chelsea have enjoyed a quarter of a century of massive financial investment and they’ve won countless trophies under incredible managers with special players. For many clubs in the EFL, that is the stuff of fairytales. Meanwhile, they are living a nightmare with no way to wake up.