Thought the transfer window closing would lead to a period of relative calm at Chelsea? Think again.
The Premier League club are embroiled in a boardroom civil war with the union between co-owner Todd Boehly and majority shareholders Clearlake Capital seemingly beyond repair according to multiple reports.
Who will prevail and what will it mean for club that continues to experience a period of turbulence quite unlike anything else in the Premier League era?
The Sporting News explains who owns Chelsea, why the factions are in dispute and who might own the west London club when this latest saga concludes.
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Who is the Chelsea owner?
As the most visible figurehead of the hastily assembled post-Roman Abramovich era at Stamford Bridge, Todd Boehly is most commonly recognised as being Chelsea's owner.
However, unlike in their days under Abramovich, the Russian oligarch, it is not as simple as the club having one all-powerful ruler.
The BlueCo consortium was founded in May 2022 to buy out Abramovich, who had been sanctioned by the UK government after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
BlueCo closed a £2.3billion ($3bn) deal. Although Boehly’s initial run as interim sporting director brought him name recognition, he was always the junior partner. Clearlake Capital, the private equity firm co-owned by Iranian American Behdad Eghbali, has a 61.5 percent state in BlueCo.
Boehly — who owns the remaining 38.5 percent along with fellow investors Mark Walter and Hansjorg Wyss — retains veto as a co-controlling owner and all major decisions must be approved by himself, Eghbali and Clearlake co-founder Jose E. Feliciano.
Since stepping back from his prominent role after the 2022 summer transfer window, Boehly has ceded much of the say over day-to-day operations to Clearlake. The Atheltic describes Eghbali as Clearlake’s “most visible and actively engaged representative at Stamford Bridge and Cobham” and “the most powerful figure for the last 18 months”.
Why have Chelsea’s owners fallen out?
From the January 2023 transfer window, Chelsea’s dizzying operations in the market have been overseen by co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. Working closely with Eghbali, Winstanley and Stewart have pivoted Chelsea’s recruitment policy toward young players on lower base salaries, while the failed signings of Boehly’s brief tenure have largely been moved on.
Although this means Boehly has been a figure of fun for a transfer policy,he no longer exerts notable influence upon, it took Mauricio Pochettino’s departure from Stamford Bridge at the end of last season to truly open cracks in the alliance with Clearlake.
Boehly was publicly supportive of the Argentine head coach but was overruled at Chelsea’s post-season review by Eghbali, Winstanley and Stewart.
Another source of frustration on both sides has been the failure to make any notable progress on Chelsea’s stadium project, either through building a new home on the nearby Earls Court site or revamping Stamford Bridge, which now has only the ninth-highest capacity in the Premier League.
According to an extensive report by The Athletic this week, Boehly considers his relationship with Clearlake to be “irreconcilable” and he and Eghbali are barely on speaking terms.
Who will own Chelsea?
Bloomberg reported that both Clearlake and Boehly are exploring the options of buying each other out to take total control, The path to either outcome appears to be fraught with difficulty.
A piece by The Guardian on Sept. 9 said Clearlake would also consider striking a deal that would effectively remove Boehly’s decision-making influence and make his role effectively ceremonial.
If Boehly were to step down or be removed as chairman, the report said he would be replaced by a Clearlake nominee in 2027.
On the other side, the fact Boehly used his personal fortune to fund his investment in Chelsea makes him agreeing to reduced power seem somewhat fanciful at this point.
Clearlake and the Eghbali-Winstanley-Stewart axis being closely aligned with Pochettino’s successor Enzo Maresca is another factor not in Boehly’s favour.
Sky Sports has reported that Eghbali and Feliciano would not accept any offer from Boehly, with their stake in Chelsea not for sale. At the same time, Boehly is apparently readying a bid for Chelsea that he believes Clearlake would find "too good to turn down".
Ultimately, neither side is prepared to sell their shares at this point. In contrast to two years of whirlwind transfer activity, the battle for control at Stamford Bridge could be one for the long haul.
