After weeks and months of back-and-forth Chelsea Football Club of England have agreed terms on the £4.25bn ($5.2bn) sale of the club to a consortium led by Todd Boehly, co-owner of the LA Dodgers baseball team.
The club was put up for sale before owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned for his alleged links to Russian President Vladimir Putin following the invasion of Ukraine. A Chelsea statement on Saturday said the new owners will pay £2.5bn for the club’s shares. The proceeds will go into a frozen bank account to be donated to charity.
The consortium is led by Boehly but Clearlake Capital, a Californian private equity firm, would own a majority of the shares in Chelsea. Other investors include US billionaire Mark Walter, also a co-owner of the LA Dodgers, and Swiss billionaire Hansjoerg Wyss.
The consortium said it will provide £1.75bn to invest in the Premier League club, including “investments in Stamford Bridge, the academy, the women’s team and Kingsmeadow and continued funding for the Chelsea Foundation”.
In the statement, Chelsea said the sale was expected to complete in late May. The takeover will require approval from the English football authorities and the UK government.
Chelsea are operating under a special licence from the UK government which ends on 31 May, but last month, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the club were on “borrowed time” to complete the sale. Any sale can only be signed off by the bidder passing the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test.
