Тодд Боэли болон Марк Уолтер нар клуб дэх өөрсдийн эзэмшлийн хувьцааг зарах хэлэлцээг хийж байна.
Премьер лигийн Челси клубийн хувьцаа эзэмшигчдийн бүрэлдэхүүнд томоохон өөрчлөлт гарах нь тодорхой болов. Тодд Боэли болон Марк Уолтер нар клуб дэх 12.8 хувийн хувьцаагаа олонхын хувьцаа эзэмшигч Clearlake Capital компанид худалдах хэлэлцээний сүүлийн шатанд иржээ. 2022 онд Роман Абрамовичаас 2.3 тэрбум фунт стерлингээр худалдан авсан тус клубийн гэрээний дагуу хувьцааг 10 жилийн хугацаанд зөвхөн бүлгийн дотоодод шилжүүлэх эрхтэй байсан нь Clearlake Capital-д давуу тал олгож байна.
Клубийн удирдлагын түвшинд үүсээд буй харилцааны зөрчил нь Тодд Боэли болон Behdad Eghbali нарын хоорондын шийдвэр гаргах үйл явцад нөлөөлсөн юм. Өдгөө 61.5 хувийн хувьцааг эзэмшдэг Clearlake Capital нь клубийн спортын болон бизнесийн стратегийг голчлон тодорхойлж байгаа бөгөөд Тодд Боэли өмнө нь хашиж байсан “түр зуурын спортын захирал” албан тушаалаасаа бууснаас хойш үйл ажиллагаанд оролцох оролцоо нь буурсан байна.
Марк Уолтерийн төлөөлөгчийн мэдээлснээр, тэрээр өөрийн эзэмшлийн хувьцааг анхны хөрөнгө оруулалтаасаа ашигтайгаар зарах хүлээлттэй байгаа аж. Одоогоор үлдсэн хувьцаа эзэмшигч Хансйорг Виссийн дараагийн алхам тодорхойгүй хэвээр байна. Тодд Боэли, Марк Уолтер, Хансйорг Висс нар нь B ангиллын хувьцаа эзэмшдэг тул эрсдэл өндөртэй ч, зарагдах тохиолдолд ижил өгөөж авах нөхцөлтэй юм.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
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The Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium bought Chelsea just four years ago and yet is already on the verge of making a major change to the main players in the boardroom.
As confirmed by The Athletic, at least two members of the group are close to selling their 12.8 per cent stakes in the club — American businessmen Todd Boehly and Mark Walter — to California-based majority owners Clearlake Capital. What Hansjorg Wyss, the other person to hold 12.8 per cent, is planning to do with his share is yet to be determined.
As part of the agreement when they came together to buy Chelsea from the sanctioned Roman Abramovich for £2.3billion ($3.1bn at current exchange rates) in 2022, it was ruled that no one could sell their shares to anyone outside of the group for 10 years. This is why Clearlake, which already owns 61.5 per cent of the Premier League club, stands to benefit greatly.
But who are the main players involved? This guide, which has been updated from a piece first published by The Athletic in September 2024, might help.
For the first few years, Boehly was, for many outsiders, the face of the new Chelsea hierarchy. But a breakdown in relations with Clearlake in 2024 — and in particular with the American private-equity firm’s co-founder Behdad Eghbali — exposed that he has not been the main driver of decision-making at the west London side.
Clearlake largely flew under the radar during the Chelsea sale process, but its 61.5 per cent stake in BlueCo — the parent company set up by the consortium that also includes French top-flight team Strasbourg among its assets — meant its influence on the club’s strategy was baked into the original ownership arrangement. As its most visible and actively engaged representative at Stamford Bridge and Chelsea’s Cobham training centre, Eghbali has been the most influential figure for the majority of the current era.
Boehly has still retained veto power up until now as co-controlling owner — all major Chelsea decisions required formal sign-off from him, Eghbali and another Clearlake co-founder, Jose E Feliciano. But the club’s direction on the sporting and business sides has been dominated by Clearlake since Boehly relinquished the ‘interim sporting director’ title he assumed for the owners’ first transfer window in the summer of 2022 and stepped back from day-to-day operations.
A fracturing of this key boardroom relationship led Boehly to initially explore his options to buy out Clearlake. But the latter never intended to cash in and was more interested in increasing its stake.
The shares owned by Clearlake are the Class A senior kind, while those owned by Boehly, Walter and Wyss are Class B junior, meaning they are exposed to first loss if the parent company loses value. But both classes of shares are guaranteed the same rate of return if they are sold — an important detail to note in a situation where either side could buy out the other. A spokesperson for Walter has claimed he expects to make a profit.
Still, let’s explain a little further about the factions involved.
Clearlake Capital
Founded in 2006 by Eghbali, Feliciano and Steven Chang, Clearlake is a private-equity firm headquartered in Santa Monica, California, that has around $180billion (£133bn) combined assets under management and is ranked the 15th-biggest private-equity firm in the world by Private Equity International.
Chelsea is the only sports team among the 50 companies in the current investment portfolio listed on the firm’s website, though Strasbourg is also under the BlueCo umbrella owned by Clearlake, Boehly, Walter and Wyss.
Clearlake more often targets companies in the technology, industrials and consumer goods sectors, using debt to help finance its acquisitions and management expertise to improve operations and profitability — though sources close to the firm insist that debt did not finance its investment in Chelsea.
The two key figures from Clearlake are Eghbali, 50, and Feliciano, 53, who, along with Boehly, must approve every major decision taken at Stamford Bridge.
Todd Boehly, centre, holds the UEFA Conference League trophy Chelsea won in 2025, with Jose E Feliciano to his left and Behdad Eghbali to his right (Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
Eghbali, a business administration graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, who moved to the United States from Iran in 1986, worked for Texas Pacific Group in the mid-2000s when he met Feliciano, who came to the U.S. from his native Puerto Rico in 1990 to study engineering at Princeton, before earning a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford.
Feliciano now has another major sporting team to be concerned about, having become a principal owner of baseball’s San Diego Padres with his wife Kwanza Jones last month.
Both men have a real-time net worth of $4.3billion according to Forbes, having sold a stake in Clearlake to investors in 2018 and used the proceeds to invest in the group’s funds, which subsequently soared in value. Together with Boehly, they put their personal wealth on the table in an unsuccessful bid to buy the NFL’s Denver Broncos in 2022, the same year they completed their acquisition of Chelsea.
Since the bulk of their investment in Chelsea comes from Clearlake’s private-equity funds, the personal shareholdings of Eghbali and Feliciano are lower than that of Boehly. The firm is not required to publicly disclose the identities of the investors who have stakes in the club through its funds, and may never do so.
While the traditional investment window for American private-equity firms is around seven years, Clearlake differentiates itself on its website as a source of “patient, long-term capital.”
Todd Boehly
Boehly is accustomed to getting involved in a tussle for power. In his youth, he was part of the wrestling team at Landon School, near Washington D.C., that won state tournament titles in 1990 and 1991.
It was only a matter of time before the multi-billionaire got involved in football. He first made a pitch for Chelsea in a deal worth £2.2billion in 2019 and also held an interest in Tottenham Hotspur.
He began his time at Chelsea as the public face of the consortium in 2022, even though he has a minority stake at 12.5 per cent. That is largely born of the fact he was named interim sporting director (a role from which he stepped down in January 2023) following the departure of Marina Granovskaia soon after the takeover. Boehly became chairman at the same time, with Bruce Buck having left the role that summer.
Todd Boehly was named interim sporting director when he began at Chelsea (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Boehly’s plan was always to take a step back. Like he does with the many other businesses in which he holds a stake, the 52-year-old prefers to let the experts he has hired run things day to day. He formed holding company Eldridge in 2015, which has investments in more than 100 enterprises, so he’s got lots of other things to focus on.
Boehly already has a strong background in sports, as he has stakes in baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and the LA Sparks women’s basketball team.
There is clearly a love for drama, too, given he co-owns the Golden Globe Awards show, and also bought out Bruce Springsteen’s song catalogue.
Mark Walter
It was not that great a surprise that Walter joined ranks with Boehly as part of the Chelsea takeover. He is the chief executive of global financial services firm Guggenheim Partners, a company Boehly worked at for 14 years before setting up Eldridge.
Walter played a leading role in the purchase of the Dodgers for $2.15billion in 2012 through Guggenheim Baseball Management, a group of partners that includes Boehly. Sports Business Journal named him the eighth-most influential person in sports business in its annual survey that year.
But Walter sold his majority interest in basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger at a record $12.5billion valuation last month. His decision came against the backdrop of a United States Department of Justice investigation into his business dealings. Federal investigators are probing insurance companies Walter owns.
He is chairman of the Dodgers and plays more of an active role there than at Chelsea. They have won three World Series titles during his time at the helm.
Mark Walter is chairman of the LA Dodgers (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images via Getty Images)
Among his other pursuits, Walter bought the Professional Women’s Hockey League, which has clubs in the U.S. and Canada. Its ice-hockey teams play for the Walter Cup, which has been named after him and his wife, Kimbra. Two years ago, he founded multinational holding company TWG Global, where he acts as CEO and chairman.
A spokesperson for Walter has said he intends to continue to put his money in sports once his time with Chelsea comes to an end. The spokesperson said: “This potential transaction values Mark Walter’s stake in Chelsea Football Club at a premium to his initial investment and is another successful sports investment for him.
“After this exit, Mr Walter intends to make future sports-related investments, where he and TWG Global have a strong track record. As a minority investor, Mr Walter did not initiate the proposed transaction to sell his interest, which has been in the works for quite some time.”
Hansjorg Wyss
When it comes to having a say in what is going on at Chelsea, Wyss’ name does not crop up too often.
He has been spotted at Stamford Bridge at games on occasion, and at last season’s FA Cup final, which Chelsea lost to Manchester City, so it is not as if the Swiss does not care what is going on with his stake in the club.
Hansorg Wyss at last season’s FA Cup final next to Behdad Eghbali, with Todd Boehly in the backdrop (Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
The most noteworthy thing he has done in connection with Chelsea is to go public on buying them from Abramovich in the first place, and that doing so would involve a group of people.
In an interview with Blick, a Swiss newspaper, in March 2022, Wyss said: “I can well imagine starting at Chelsea with partners. I’m not doing something like this alone. If I buy Chelsea, then it is with a consortium consisting of six to seven investors.”
The 90-year-old made his money in a medical-device company, which he would go on to sell, called Synthes. He has donated millions over the years to environmental causes.
