Chelsea FC being sold to Dodgers owners for $3 billion after Russian oligarch is forced to offload club
LONDON -- Chelsea will be sold to a consortium fronted by Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly, ending 19 years of ownership and lavish investment by Roman Abramovich until the Russian oligarch was sanctioned and forced to offload the English Premier League club over the war in Ukraine.
The Premier League must approve them as the new ownership and the government has to sign off under the terms of the license that allows Chelsea to continue operating as a business through May 31 while being one of Abramovich's frozen assets. Boehly is already in London and attended Chelsea's Premier League match on Saturday against Wolverhampton at Stamford Bridge. Thomas Tuchel's team is third in the standings with four games remaining. The title is out of reach but Champions League qualification is nearly secured.
Boehly is part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers MLB franchise and he also has minority stakes in the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers and WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks. No details have been provided about the future day-to-day leadership of Chelsea, which was the first Premier League club to benefit from a mega-rich foreign investor in 2003.