Chelsea, the English Premier League soccer club, has appointed Daniel McEwan as its new director of partnerships.
He joins the West London club from the McLaren Racing Formula 1 team and officially took up the role this month.
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McEwan will report to Chelsea’s chief revenue officer Casper Stylsvig, who joined the club in November 2023.
McEwan has left McLaren after spending six-and-a-half years there, most recently as director of partnerships.
Before joining the F1 team, he had stints at several agencies, including CSM Sport and Entertainment (now Wasserman).
McEwan will be working alongside Todd Kline, who joined Chelsea in November as president of commercial.
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By GlobalDataChelsea have gone through a period of significant executive-level change since the club's takeover by a consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital in May 2022.
Most recently, chief executive Chris Jurasek departed the club after 15 months in the role, with former chief operating officer Jason Gannon named as his successor in September.
Prior to that, Stylsvig joined from Italian giants AC Milan.
Just months after taking control of the club, the Boehly-Clearlake consortium hired Damian Willoughby as commercial director but fired him just weeks later after finding evidence that he had sent “inappropriate messages” to a finance agent.
In his new role, McEwan will immediately be part of the search to secure a new front-of-shirt sponsor for Chelsea as the team has been without a primary partner for the entire 2024-25 campaign so far.
The club did, however, manage to bring in a new sleeve sponsor (Fever) and training kit sponsor (BingX) at the start of the season.
Meanwhile, Monarch Collective, the investment fund focused on women's sports, is seeking to buy a stake in the Chelsea women’s team, it has been reported.
According to Sky News, the firm, which is jointly headed by Kara Nortman, is among the parties exploring the purchase of a minority interest in the current Women's Super League (WSL) leaders.
Talks with Chelsea executives are said to have reached a detailed stage, although people close to the club insisted there was no certainty that an agreement would be reached, according to the Sky News report.
Monarch Collective raised a $150 million fund to invest in women's sports leagues and clubs nearly two years ago.
The group has since invested in a women's soccer franchise in Boston as well as San Diego Wave, in the NWSL.
Last year, control of Chelsea Women passed to Blueco, the separate holding company owned by Boehly and Clearlake.
BlueCo, which was the vehicle used by Clearlake and Boehly to take control of Chelsea in 2022, replaced Chelsea FC Holdings Limited as the entity with “significant control” of the women’s side. This was disclosed via a filing with Companies House on June 28, 2024.
This move was done to make Chelsea Women a standalone business, led by a new commercial team at Clearlake dedicated to that side’s growth.
Last May, Chelsea unveiled that they were mulling over a potential sale of a stake in their women's team, valued at around £150 million ($184.7 million).
At that point, they said: “Chelsea Women will be repositioned so that it sits alongside, rather than beneath, the men’s team in a move that heralds a new era for the club.”
When the Clearlake consortium bought Chelsea, investing in the women’s side was stated as being one of its key commitments.
