Co-sporting director Laurence Stewart completes Chelsea’s new ‘sporting department’

Chelsea’s new “sporting department” has now taken its final shape as well, with Laurence Stewart now officially in place as our co-sporting director, alongside Paul Winstanley. Stewart agreed to join us from AS Monaco way back at the end of the October and that is finally going to happen “next week”, as confirmed by the club today.

Stewart and Winstanley will head up the operation — co-owner and chairman Todd Boehly relinquished his interim sporting director role last month — and oversee the work of technical director Christopher Vivell, co-director of recruitment Joe Shields, talent management and development leads Kyle Macaulay and Jim Fraser (who’s also head of youth development), and lead data analyst Matthew Hallam. Hallam is a new name for me, and unfortunately there’s not much information available on him out there.

It looks like Vivell will also have an expanded role once our multi-club operation starts taking shape.

Chelsea’s rundown of the department makes no mention of Neil Bath, who was recently promoted to “Director of Football Development and Operations”. His focus is probably on the football side of things, but it’s weird (to me) to see his former assistant and successor, Jim Fraser mentioned and not also Bath himself.

Anyway, The Athletic has this handy-dandy chart, if you’re a visual learner: