Chelsea Football Club’s chairman, Todd Boehly, along with director Mark Walter, is reportedly in discussions to sell their stakes in the club to its majority owner, Clearlake Capital.
According to multiple sources, conversations have commenced within Chelsea’s ownership group following a noticeable rift that first surfaced in 2024, prompting both parties to consider the possibility of buying each other out. Recent developments suggest that Clearlake, which holds a 61.5% stake in the club and is led by co-founders Behdad Eghbali and Jose E. Feliciano, is now positioned to potentially acquire the minority stakes held by Boehly and Walter.
Boehly and Walter each possess a 12.8% stake in the club, which they currently value at £5 billion, indicating that a sale could yield approximately £640 million for each. Additionally, Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who is closely associated with Boehly and Walter, also holds a 12.8% stake, although his current standing within this situation remains uncertain.
Walter, who serves as co-owner and chief executive of Guggenheim Partners, a global finance firm where Boehly began his career, made headlines last week by selling the Los Angeles Lakers for a record $12.5 billion (£9.23 billion), just a year after acquiring a majority stake in the NBA franchise. Meanwhile, U.S. federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are reportedly investigating various companies within Walter’s business portfolio.
On the pitch, Chelsea experienced a challenging season, finishing 10th in the Premier League, and has appointed Xabi Alonso as the new manager this summer.
While Boehly currently holds the position of Chelsea chairman, he is slated to be replaced at the end of the season by a representative appointed by Clearlake, as stipulated in a pre-agreed arrangement made when the consortium purchased the club from Roman Abramovich for £2.3 billion in 2022. This transition would further diminish Boehly’s influence, as he was initially the public face of the takeover and served as interim sporting director during the inaugural transfer window under the new ownership.
Since 2023, Eghbali has emerged as a pivotal figure at Chelsea, heavily involved in transfer negotiations, while several senior executives have departed the club within the first two years of the current ownership structure.
Despite reports of discord, some sources within Chelsea’s ownership group downplay the rift, pointing to images of Boehly and Walter attending significant matches together, notably during Chelsea’s FA Cup final loss to Manchester City.
However, ongoing plans to either redevelop Stamford Bridge or relocate to a new stadium have fueled tensions. Although both Boehly’s faction and Clearlake appear to support a move away from the current site, they differ on the project’s design and scale—a matter Boehly alluded to in a Bloomberg interview last March. “We have to think long term about what we’re trying to accomplish,” he stated. “We have a big stadium development opportunity that we have to flesh out. That’s going to be where we’re either aligned or we ultimately decide to go different ways.”
As of now, Chelsea, along with representatives for Boehly, Walter, and Clearlake, have chosen not to comment on these developments.
Source: BBC.
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