Premier League approved the purchase of Chelsea by Todd Boehly’s group

The premier league approved this Tuesday the purchase of the Chelsea by the group led by American businessman Todd Boehly, announced the body that runs the English soccer elite in a statement. On May 7, this consortium made an offer of 4,250 million pounds (4,970 million euros / 5,320 million dollars) for the acquisition of the London club, owned by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramóvich since 2003.

The sale is pending the agreement of the British government, recalled the Premier League. A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson had stated that the government was “working closely with the club” to close the sale.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian millionaire, subject to sanctions from London, put the club up for sale on March 2, insisting that he would not claim repayment of loans contracted by the club throughout his 19 years at the front, and that all profits from the operation would go to the victims of the war.

At the end of a long auction process involving several groups, it is Boehly and his investment partners that was chosen by the New York bank Raine Group, which is supervising the sale.

Investors also include Mark Walter, co-owner of the Dodgers, the Los Angeles baseball franchise, and Swiss millionaire Hansjoerg Wyss, founder of the medical equipment manufacturing company Synthes, and the US investment company Clearlake Capital.

Abramovich had acquired the ‘Blues’ in 2003 for 140 million pounds ($175 million). Thanks to the economic potential injected, Chelsea, a second-tier club in English football at the time, became a great national and European player, winning five Premier Leagues and two Champions Leagues (2012, 2021).