Abramovich will sell Chelsea for more than 5,000 million euros, a record figure in football

The American businessman Todd Boehly, co-owner of the Los Angles Dodgers baseball club, discovered the world power that soccer represented during his stay as an intern at Citibank in London, where he combined his work beginnings with an extension of his studies at the London School of Economics.

In finishing this week the purchase of Chelsea FC for the astronomical figure of 4,250 million pounds (approx. 5,000 million euros), Boehly, at the head of a large consortium made up of the co-owner of the Dodgers, Mark Walter, the Swiss millionaire Hansjorg Wyss and the American investment firm Clearlake Capital, has fulfilled a youthful dream.

"When I was growing up, all we knew [in terms of video games] was Pac-Man [Comecocos, in Spain] and Donkey Kong," he told the Bloomberg agency in 2019,

after his first unsuccessful attempt to buy the West London team.

“I had no idea what Manchester United, Chelsea or Tottenham were.

Kids today are fully aware of who the best are, and that the Premier League is the best competition,” he explained.

The economic sanctions imposed on the Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, for his alleged collaboration in the invasion of Ukraine ordered by Vladimir Putin, have given Boehly the opportunity to bid for the club.

It was Abramovich himself who tried to launch the sale, but control of the operation was ultimately in the hands of the British government and sports authorities.

The managers of Chelsea, who have been allowed to continue operating -and the team, to continue competing- under a special license that prohibited the sale of tickets or

, or the transfer of players, have limited themselves to initialing the operation.

"The sale is expected to be completed by the end of May, subject to all necessary regulatory approvals," the London club announced.

The purchase will put an end to nineteen years of the Abramovich era, close to the Kremlin, who used a huge checkbook to buy it for about 160 million euros in 2003. In these years, the Russian tycoon has led Chelsea to win five titles of the Premier League and two Champions Leagues (2012, 2021).

His first signing was José Mourinho, the coach who presented himself to the English, hand in hand with the Russian oligarch, as "the special one" (something like "the chosen one").

Todd Boehly, co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mark J. Terrill (AP)

Abramovich, who as soon as he announced his attempt to get rid of the club -before the British Government snatched control- promised that he would not claim from the new owners the more than 1,750 million euros he lent out of his own pocket, has confirmed in the hours that his will to renounce that debt was still standing.

He has asked that the profits from the operation go to the victims of the war in Ukraine.

After a long negotiation process with several groups, Boehly and his partners were chosen by the Raine group, a New York bank in charge of the process of selling the latest Champions League winners.

“Of the total investment made, 2.5 billion pounds (3 billion euros) will be used to buy the club's shares and said income will be deposited in a frozen British bank account with the intention of giving 100% to charitable causes, such as confirmed Roman Abramovich”, Chelsea has indicated.

“UK government approval will be needed to transfer this proceeds from the frozen UK bank account,” he added.

The rest of the offer committed by Boehly, some 2,040 million euros, will be used for new investments in the club.

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