The long-running saga over the ownership of Chelsea was the subject of weeks of wrangling and speculation at the back end of the 2021/22 Premier League season, before a deal was finally reached to sell the club to Todd Boehly for a record $5.25 billion (£4.25 billion).
The American billionaire and a consortium including Clearlake Capital acquired the club on on May 30, 2022, after former Blues' owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, was forced to put the club up for sale by the British government.
Sanctions had been imposed on Abramovich after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with his assets frozen, meaning the club had to be sold. A frenetic race for a takeover then ensued, with Boehly's BlueCo consortium victorious.
But Chelsea are not Boehly's only football club, nor is football the only sport into which the American has branched in terms of his expanding business empire. The Sporting News explains all here.
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Which teams are owned by Chelsea and Todd Boehly?
Todd Boehly and Chelsea appear to have plans to replicate multi-club models similar to the City Football Group, which contains Manchester City among a worldwide portfolio of football teams.
Boehly is co-controlling owner of Chelsea as the head of BlueCo, a consortium that includes investment firm Clearlake Capital, along with Behdad Eghbali and others. But the group have a stake in other sports clubs.
In May 2023, they made a move to buy a majority stake in French club RC Strasbourg, who play in Ligue 1, which was worth a reported $80 million (£65 million). At that time, the Guardian reported that Chelsea were also exploring investment in Portuguese club Portimonense, as well as considering "a number of clubs in France, Belgium, Portugal and South America".
More recently, in September 2023, speculation emerged via the Telegraph that Boehly and Chelsea wanted to buy Sporting CP, the Lisbon-based club who have been crowned champions of Portugal 19 times and developed star footballers including Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo.
As of October 2023, Boehly is known to be a co-owner of Chelsea and Strasbourg in the footballing world. Outside of that, he's owns 20% of the Los Angeles Dodgers in baseball and is part owner of the Los Angeles Sparks, a basketball team.
It's likely that Boehly will try to expand this to include more sports teams, and especially football clubs, in the future.
▶ 1982 - Ken Bates bought Chelsea for £1.
— Treasure sportstv (@Treasuresports1) October 7, 2023
▶ 2003 - Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea for £140m.
▶ 2022 - Todd Boehly bought Chelsea for £4,25bn. pic.twitter.com/ptW1JyR3ep
Todd Boehly net worth: How much money does the Chelsea owner have?
According to Forbes, Boehly has a net worth of $6.5 billion (£5.3bn), which makes him the 184th richest man in the USA. But the cumulative wealth shared between the Clearlake Capital Group, Hansjorg Wyss and Mark Walter — all the parties involved in Chelsea's ownership — is a reported $15.9bn (£13bn).
The 50-year-old made most of his fortune through Eldridge Industries, a holding company, and has been involved in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as well as the insurance, asset management, technology, sports, media, real estate and consumer sectors.
He is both the co-owner and chairman of Chelsea.
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Rules on multi-club ownership in football
Article 5 of UEFA's rules on multi-club ownership, entitled 'Integrity of the competition', says that "no club may hold or deal in the securities or shares of any other club participating in a UEFA club competition". Effectively, that forbids one ownership group from acquiring more than one elite club that would get into the Champions League, Europa League or Conference Leagues. That would present complications if, for example, both Chelsea and Strasbourg qualified for the same European competition next season.
It goes on to forbid the involvement in "management, administration and/or sporting performance" in another club participating in UEFA's club competitions and that "no individual or legal entity may have control or influence over more than one club" in UEFA competitions.
However, the rules have recently been relaxed to some extent, with Aston Villa and Vitoria Sport Clube, Brighton & Hove Albion and Royal Union Saint-Gilloise, plus AC Milan and Toulouse — all of whom share owners — having had proceedings against them dropped, allowing them all to compete in Europe simultaneously.
