Minority owners ready to exit Chelsea

US financiers Todd Boehly and Mark Walter are in talks to sell their stakes in Chelsea Football Club to majority owner Clearlake Capital, according to the Financial Times.  Any deal would potentially help to resolve long-running tensions among the Premier League club’s ownership group, which acquired it for £2.5bn in 2022 when Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich was forced to sell in the wake of sanctions imposed on him following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Since buying Chelsea, Boehly and Walter’s side of the consortium has clashed with Clearlake over strategy. While Clearlake owns more than 60 per cent of Chelsea, it shares joint control and equal governance of Chelsea FC with Boehly, who chairs the club.

The talks come after years of on-and-off negotiations between the two sides, but it was not yet certain that a deal would be struck, the people said. The revived negotiations also come as Walter has sought to sell other high-profile assets as his business empire faces regulatory scrutiny.

US prosecutors are probing Walter’s insurance companies, which were the foundation for his swift rise on Wall Street, following disclosures that revealed insurers he controlled lent to related parties without disclosing links to those loans. The insurers are now rushing to sell their affiliated investments or pay down these loans.  Last week, Walter agreed to sell the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5bn to former Disney chief Bob Iger and venture capitalist Joshua Kushner less than a year after he acquired the basketball team.

Spokespeople for Walter and Boehly did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Chelsea and Clearlake declined to comment. A stake sale would follow a flurry of deals for sports teams, whose valuations have surged as billionaires and institutional investors increasingly view sports franchises as an investable asset class and not just a trophy.

Under Clearlake and Boehly, Chelsea last year won the Fifa Club World Cup and the Uefa Europa Conference League, the third tier of European competition. However, the club has struggled in England’s Premier League, finishing 10th last season and failing to qualify for lucrative European competitions.

The club this summer appointed former Real Madrid boss Xabi Alonso as manager following a 2025-26 season that was disrupted by the departure of Italian coach Enzo Maresca in January. Maresca has since joined Premier League rivals Manchester City following a settlement between the two clubs in which Chelsea will receive compensation.