Chelsea Football Club of England have confirmed agreeing terms of sale of the club to a consortium led by Todd Boehly, LA Dodgers baseball team’s co-owner.
It should be recalled that the club was put up for sale after threats of sanctioning former owner Roman Abramovich for his alleged connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin after the invasion of Ukraine.
A recent Chelsea statement revealed that 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 possess a majority of the shares in Chelsea.
Other investors are US billionaire Mark Walter, also a co-owner of the LA Dodgers, and Swiss billionaire Hansjoerg Wyss.
In the statement, Chelsea disclosed that the sale would be complete in late May. The takeover will require the approval of English football authorities and the UK government.
Chelsea are currently operating under a special licence from the UK government which ends on May 31, but Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said in April that the club were on “borrowed time” to complete the sale.
For any sale to be signed off, the bidder must pass the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test.
