Roman Abramovich

English football club Chelsea, owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich since 2003, will be sold to a consortium of businessmen led by American businessman Todd Boely.

Boeli is the co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team and the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Forbes estimates his fortune at $4.5 billion. In 2019, he tried to buy Chelsea from Abramovich and offered $3 billion for the club, but was turned down.

But Chelsea’s largest shareholder will likely be California-based private equity firm Clearlake Capital, The Guardian said. The deal is scheduled to be closed at the end of May (before the English Premier League shareholders’ annual meeting), otherwise the London club risks being eliminated from the tournament and European competition.

The deal is valued at $5.2 billion. Of these, 3.08 billion, allocated for the purchase of club shares, will be donated to charity. The remaining 2.16 billion will be invested in the development of the club. The UK government stressed that they would not allow the sale unless they were confident that Abramovich would not eventually generate any revenue.

– commented on the news telegram channel “Antiglanets”.

Recall that Roman Abramovich decided to sell Chelsea after launching a military special operation in Ukraine. In early March, Britain froze its assets, imposing sanctions on billionaires. However, this meant he could not sell the club and Chelsea would face operational difficulties. As a result, the country’s government granted Abramovich a temporary license to sell. Abramovic promised that all proceeds from the deal will go to charities.