Clearlake Capital has taken full control of Chelsea after buying out Todd Boehly and Mark Walter, with confirmation arriving on Wednesday night. Boehly exits football as a diminished figure four years on, along with his fellow investor Walter, and little will change in the Stamford Bridge boardroom simply because he has left the scene.
Clearlake, the US private equity firm founded by Behdad Eghbali and José E Feliciano, was already the majority owner and guiding force. Boehly, Walter and the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss had an equal share of a 38.5% stake, but they had drifted into irrelevance since the BlueCo consortium bought Chelsea from Roman Abramovich for £2.5bn in 2022. Eghbali had taken a prominent role and Clearlake had been calling the shots long before this week’s confirmation.
The split had been in the works for some time. It is two years since cracks within the ownership group spilled into public, with talk of Boehly losing faith in his working relationship with Clearlake. Boehly wanted a resolution. People close to him said he had investors ready to provide capital for a full takeover, although that drew eye-rolling from Clearlake. Clearlake considered buying Boehly out, and another suggestion was that he step down as chair and accept governance changes that would leave him in little more than a ceremonial role. There was no immediate sign of movement from either side, a truce followed, and Clearlake continued down its path.
Eghbali is hugely influential, while Feliciano operates more in the background and recently became an investor in the Major League Baseball team the San Diego Padres. Eghbali is more widely seen and was repeatedly targeted with abusive chants by supporters earlier this year. It is only over the past year that Chelsea fans unhappy with the club’s difficulties in the post-Abramovich era have really started to home in on Clearlake.
There was a time when Boehly was the public face of the takeover. Clearlake stood back and watched when he appointed himself interim sporting director after key personnel left in the wake of Abramovich’s departure. Boehly attracted publicity and was in the limelight. Agents found him personable but wondered whether he knew anything about football, and there was a sense that his naivety could be exploited. Chelsea ended up splurging some £300m on a bunch of misfits, and the signing of Raheem Sterling on a £325,000-a-week contract became a cautionary tale. The cost of such failures was not easily shaken off, and the sense of chaos grew when Thomas Tuchel was sacked and replaced by Graham Potter at the start of the 2022-23 season.
Boehly has since explained that he signed Marc Cucurella from Brighton because he heard Manchester City wanted the Spain left-back. There is presumably more to thriving as a sporting director than copying a rival’s work. Boehly had his fingers burned, became a joke figure and the face of Chelsea’s excess, and made himself unpopular on a wider scale by glibly wondering at a business conference why the Premier League had no All-Star game. Saying Chelsea would beat Real Madrid 3-0 before a Champions League quarter-final in 2023 predictably backfired. Chelsea have qualified for the Champions League only once under his tenure.
It is said that Boehly’s plan was never to become so involved and that he always intended to step aside once experts were in place. Chelsea’s strategy has certainly changed since that first window. They have gone from having one interim sporting director to appointing five permanent ones in Paul Winstanley, Laurence Stewart, Sam Jewell, Joe Shields and Dave Fallows. They have handed out long, incentivised contracts and targeted young players. Eghbali has driven the vision, and it has been a bumpy ride at times, with managers coming and going. Clearlake sources say important lessons have been absorbed this year, and last summer’s business was better: Chelsea brought in a serious manager, Xabi Alonso, and signed established talent.
Boehly stood back and watched as talk of buyouts went quiet until the summer just gone. The spark is said to have been Walter seeking to liquidate assets to deal with financial issues in the US, and the writing was on the wall when he sold his LA Lakers stake. Boehly and Walter are said to have made a modest profit on their investment. Jonathan Goldstein, a Boehly ally, has also left the board. Wyss has invested in a Clearlake vehicle and has not left the building.
Little will change day to day. Operations, leadership and strategy remain the same. The big issue is the stadium question, and the exit of Boehly and Walter could lead to movement. Talks over leaving Stamford Bridge for Earls Court were first reported in September 2024. The Earls Court Development Committee’s separate proposal for the site has not progressed since receiving planning permission. Chelsea’s interest remains, although they have not ruled out finding a way to make the more complicated plan of redeveloping Stamford Bridge work.
Whatever happens will take place without Boehly. In their statement, Eghbali and Feliciano said Boehly “will always be a part of the Chelsea story and family”. That was a generous take.