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Clearlake Takes Full Control of Chelsea as Boehly Sells Stake

4 hours ago

Clearlake Capital now owns all of Chelsea after Todd Boehly, Mark Walter and Hansjorg Wyss sold their stakes. Boehly steps down as chairman.

Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly and club director Mark Walter have sold their shares in the Premier League side to Clearlake Capital, the private equity firm that already held the majority stake. Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss has also cashed out his holding, leaving Clearlake in sole ownership of the London club.

The deal means Clearlake - steered by co-founders Behdad Eghbali and Jose E. Feliciano - now controls 100% of Chelsea. Boehly, Walter and Wyss had each held a 12.8% share, while Clearlake previously owned 61.5%. Boehly, an American investor, will step down as chairman, the post he had occupied since 2022.

That year, a consortium purchased the club for £2.3bn from Roman Abramovich. The Russian businessman had been sanctioned by the UK government in March 2022 over alleged connections to President Vladimir Putin, an accusation he rejected.

Signs of the split emerged earlier this year. BBC Sport reported in August that Boehly and Walter were weighing an exit, and multiple sources described talks that began within the ownership group after a falling-out that first surfaced in 2024. Each side, according to those accounts, looked at buying the other out.

Boehly, who also co-owns Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, called his time at Stamford Bridge an "honour." He thanked the Premier League, the coaching staff and players, Chelsea's leadership and employees, and the club's supporters. "I have valued my partnership with Clearlake and the wider ownership group, and the collective decisions and investment we have made to support the immediate and long-term success of the club," he said, adding that he believed Chelsea was "well positioned for continued success under Clearlake's leadership."

Eghbali and Feliciano paid tribute to the departing chairman, thanking him for his "time and contribution" and saying he would "always be a part of the Chelsea story and family." The pair said their priority would be to "continue investing in the club's infrastructure, sporting performance, player development and delivering long-term success for Chelsea and the club's supporters."

Mixed results since 2022

The four years under the outgoing ownership have brought uneven form. Chelsea's best league placing in that stretch came last season's fourth-place finish in 2024-25, a campaign in which the team also lifted the Uefa Conference League and the Fifa Club World Cup. The club has churned through players at an unusual rate, with an early recruitment plan built around handing long contracts to young signings.

On the pitch, the most recent Premier League season ended with Chelsea in 10th. Over the summer the club named Xabi Alonso as head coach.

Stadium plans and no operational shake-up

One source of friction between the two camps has been the club's stadium future. Chelsea are weighing whether to redevelop Stamford Bridge or build a new ground elsewhere, and sources say that question had strained relations between Boehly's side and Clearlake at points.

Despite the change at the top, the club sought to reassure supporters that little else would shift. A Chelsea statement said there would be "no changes to the day-to-day operations, leadership or strategy" as a result of Clearlake taking full ownership.

Walter, meanwhile, is a prominent figure in American sport and finance. He is co-owner and chief executive of Guggenheim Partners, the global finance company where Boehly launched his own career in the industry. Last month Walter sold the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that valued the NBA franchise at a record $12.5bn (£9.23bn), roughly a year after he had bought a majority stake in the team.

Chelsea ownership, Clearlake Capital, Todd Boehly, Mark Walter, Behdad Eghbali, Jose Feliciano, Stamford Bridge, Premier League

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