Todd Boehly and Mark Walter are in talks to sell their Chelsea shares back to Clearlake Capital, with the club now being discussed at closer to £5bn. That is a big jump on the roughly £2.3bn paid when Clearlake-Boehly bought Chelsea from Roman Abramovich in 2022. Tensions between Boehly and Clearlake's Behdad Eghbali first became apparent in summer 2024.
The stadium question behind the split
Boehly said the split could come down to the long-term stadium plan. Speaking to talkSPORT, he said: "We have to think long-term about what we're trying to accomplish. We have a big stadium development opportunity that we have to flesh out. That's going to be where we're either aligned or we ultimately decide to go different ways."
That points to a disagreement over control as much as price. If the valuation being discussed is really moving toward £5bn, the size of the gain makes any buyout harder to ignore, but it also raises the stakes around who sets the direction of the project.
Chelsea's football case for change
The football side has not taken away the pressure either. Chelsea have spent nearly £1.5bn on player transfer fees since May 2022 but have not won either the Premier League or Champions League.
Last season they finished 10th in the Premier League with 52 points and 58 goals scored. A club spending at that level is not supposed to sit on that kind of return, and the mixed finish underlines why any ownership reset will be judged against football output as well as boardroom politics.
Chelsea's last five recorded results were LWDLL, a poor run that fits the instability around the club. The ownership split is not just a financial story now, it is another sign that the project still has unresolved questions in it. If Boehly and Walter do push ahead, the next stage will be the talks around Clearlake and the valuation that has climbed from 2022's £2.3bn to nearer £5bn.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 4 outlets. How we work →
