It has never been more important to know where the power lies at the top of Chelsea.
Todd Boehly has been, for many outsiders, the face of the American consortium that paid £2.3billion ($3bn) to acquire the club from sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in May 2022, but the ugly public fallout from his breakdown in relations with majority shareholders Clearlake Capital — and in particular the private equity firm’s co-founder Behdad Eghbali — has exposed that he is not the main driver of decision-making at Stamford Bridge.
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 Ligue 1 club 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 Cobham, Eghbali has been the most powerful figure for the last 18 months.
Boehly retains veto power as co-controlling owner; all major Chelsea decisions require formal sign-off from him, Eghbali and 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 has led Boehly to explore his options to buy out Clearlake, whose decision-makers insist they have no need or desire to sell their majority stake and, in contrast, say they have the funds already in place to buy out Boehly and his fellow investors Mark Walter and Hansjorg Wyss (who together own the remaining 38.5 per cent of shares) if they are unhappy.
Either outcome is possible, as is a continuation of the status quo — though the growing toxicity in the public discourse between the two sides makes the situation feel increasingly untenable. People familiar with Boehly’s thinking on the matter, granted anonymity to protect relationships, believe there will be a clear indication of the direction of travel within the next two months.
Clearlake and Boehly signed a commitment as part of the purchase agreement in 2022 not to sell Chelsea for at least 10 years, but there is nothing to prevent them from trading shares with each other. There are also questions of how that commitment would be enforced, given that the UK government has since changed and the demand for it to be a condition of sale came from Abramovich, who remains a sanctioned individual.
The shares owned by Clearlake are Class A senior 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. However, 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.
No one can confidently predict how the battle for full control of Chelsea will end, or when, but below is some more information on the key figures 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 $80billion of assets under management and is ranked the 16th-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 their 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 and Feliciano who, along with Boehly, must approve every major decision taken at Stamford Bridge.
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.
Both men have a real-time net worth of $4.4billion 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 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” and sources close to the firm insist that Chelsea is regarded as a decades-long investment.
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 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 has very much been the public face of the consortium since it successfully took over at Stamford Bridge two years ago, even though he has a minority stake at just under 13 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 also became chairman at the same time, with Bruce Buck having also departed that summer.
Boehly’s plan was always to take a step back. Like he does with the many businesses in which he has a stake, the 50-year-old prefers to let the experts he has hired to run things day to day. He formed holding company Eldridge in 2015, which has investments in more than 100 companies, so has lots of other things to focus on.
Boehly already has a strong background in sports, as he has a stake in the LA Dodgers, LA Lakers and the LA Sparks.
There is clearly a love for drama, too, given he co-owns the Golden Globe Awards, and bought out Bruce Springsteen’s song catalogue. Light-hearted warnings about Boehly not being a man born to run (a football club) may not be appreciated at this time.
Mark Walter
It was not that great a surprise that Walter, who also owns just under 13 per cent, 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 LA Dodgers for $2.15billion in 2012 through Guggenheim Baseball Management, a group of partners that includes Boehly. Due to the impact of the purchase, Sports Business Journal named him the eighth-most influential person in sports business in its annual survey that year.
He is chairman of the LA Dodgers and plays more of an active role there than at Chelsea. They have won one World Series and three National League pennants during his time at the helm.
Among his other pursuits, Walter bought the Professional Women’s Hockey League in the U.S. and Canada. Teams play for the Walter Cup, which has been named after him and his wife, Kimbra.
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, so it is not as if the Swiss does not care what is going on with his split (also just under 13 per cent).
The most noteworthy thing he has done in connection with Chelsea is to go public on buying the club from Abramovich in the first place, and that it would involve a group of people.
In an interview with Blick in early March 2022, he 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 88-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.
(Top photos: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
