When Todd Boehly stepped aside as Chelsea's interim sporting director he heralded the 'world-class' credentials of those taking over.
His exhaustive search had taken the best part of a year and Boehly courted prestigious candidates to lead his bold tomorrow such as Michael Edwards, formerly of Liverpool, Paul Mitchell, of Monaco, and Christophe Freund of Salzburg.
There were talks with Luis Campos of Paris Saint-Germain, Andrea Berta of Atletico Madrid, and Monchi at Sevilla, what a coup that would have been to fill the void left by Marina Granovskaia.