Todd Boehly leaves Chelsea after Clearlake buys out Boehly and Walter

Todd Boehly has left Chelsea after Clearlake Capital bought out him and fellow investor Mark Walter, a move confirmed on Wednesday night that completes Clearlake’s move to full control of the club.

Boehly, Walter and the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss had held equal shares of a 38.5% stake within the BlueCo ownership group that purchased Chelsea from Roman Abramovich for £2.5bn in 2022, but Clearlake — founded by Behdad Eghbali and José E Feliciano — was already the majority owner and driving force behind the club’s direction.

The split had been developing for some time: cracks in the ownership emerged publicly two years ago amid reports Boehly had lost faith in his working relationship with Clearlake and that he had potential investors ready to fund a full takeover; Clearlake responded by considering buying him out and suggesting Boehly step down as chair into a largely ceremonial role before a truce followed.

Eghbali has taken a prominent public role within Clearlake, while Feliciano has operated more quietly and recently became an investor in the San Diego Padres; supporters have singled out Eghbali on occasion, with abusive chants directed at him earlier this year.

Boehly once served as the public face of the takeover and briefly appointed himself interim sporting director after key personnel left following Abramovich’s departure, overseeing an expensive recruitment phase that the article says included around £300m spent on a group of signings and a Raheem Sterling contract reported at £325,000-a-week; the period also saw Thomas Tuchel sacked and Graham Potter appointed at the start of the 2022-23 season.

The report records Boehly’s own explanations for specific transfers, including that he signed Marc Cucurella because he had heard Manchester City wanted the left-back, and cites moments that harmed his public standing, such as asking at a business conference why the Premier League had no All-Star game and predicting Chelsea would beat Real Madrid 3-0 before a 2023 Champions League quarter-final.

Chelsea’s recruitment and governance approach has shifted since that era: the club moved from having one interim sporting director to appointing five permanent sporting directors — Paul Winstanley, Laurence Stewart, Sam Jewell, Joe Shields and Dave Fallows — has offered long, incentivised contracts, targeted younger players, and, according to Clearlake sources, absorbed important lessons; Chelsea have qualified for the Champions League once under this ownership, and last summer’s business included appointing Xabi Alonso as manager and signing established players while Boehly largely stepped back.

Talk of buyouts had quieted until the most recent summer, when the sale of assets by Walter amid reported financial issues in the US — including the disposal of his LA Lakers stake — is said to have reignited moves; Boehly and Walter are reported to have made a modest profit on their Chelsea investment, Jonathan Goldstein, an ally of Boehly, has left the board, and Wyss has invested in a Clearlake vehicle and remains involved at the club.

The biggest practical consequence of the ownership change may be the club’s stadium plans: the Guardian first reported in September 2024 that Chelsea were in talks about leaving Stamford Bridge for Earls Court, though the Earls Court Development Committee’s separate proposal has not progressed since receiving planning permission and Chelsea have not ruled out redeveloping Stamford Bridge; the club’s future decisions on the ground will proceed without Boehly, with Eghbali and Feliciano saying in their statement that Boehly "will always be a part of the Chelsea story and family".