Premier League club Chelsea to be bought by consortium led by Todd Boehly

Premier League football club Chelsea will be bought by a consortium led by Todd Boehly, an American billionaire who is also part-owner of the Major League club Los Angeles Dodgers for a price of $5.24 billion.

Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly watches a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers on April 30 in Los Angeles. Chelsea is being sold to a consortium fronted by American sports investor Todd Boehly. [AP/YONHAP]

Premier League football club Chelsea will be bought by a consortium led by Todd Boehly, an American billionaire who is also part-owner of the Major League club Los Angeles Dodgers for a price of $5.24 billion.

Chelsea posted a statement posted on their website Saturday confirming that terms have been agreed for a new ownership group, led by Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter and Hansjoerg Wyss, to acquire the London club. Of the total investment being made, 2.5 billion pounds ($3.1 billion) will be applied to purchase the shares in the Club.

They added that the proceeds from the sale would be placed into a frozen British bank account, with the intention that all of the funds will eventually go to charitable causes, as club owner Roman Abramovich had promised.

The sale ends 19 years of ownership and investment by Abramovich until the Russian oligarch was sanctioned and forced to offload the Premier League club.

The Chelsea football club was first put up for sale in March by Abramovich following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Russian oligarch has since been sanctioned by the British government, freezing his assets, but the club was granted permission to continue operations.

However, since sanctions were introduced, the club has been operating under a special license issued by the government that comes with strict conditions. They are currently unable to buy or sell players in the transfer market nor can they sell tickets to games or merchandise The club is allowed to be sold, but Abramovich can not benefit from the proceeds. The sale however still requires the approval of the British government. The restrictions will only be lifted once the sale is completed.

Once the sale goes through, the price of $3.1 billion would become the highest price paid for a team in any sport.

In March when the bid opened up for Chelsea, Hana Financial Group were also part of a consortium led by British property developer Nick Candy which also included Korean sports management group C&P Sports and another unnamed Korean backer. The consortium, known as the Blue Football Consortium, reportedly bid over £2.5 billion ($4 billion) for the club.

However, by the end of the month, the consortium backed by Hana Financial Group dropped out of the race after they were excluded from a list of preferred bidders.

Chelsea is currently in third place in the Premier League. While Chelsea sits within the top four, they lag 16 points behind second place Liverpool and were eliminated from the lucrative Champions League last month. On top of that, Chelsea will have no way to replace players leaving at the end of the season unless the sale is completed.

BY YUN SO-HYANG [yun.sohyang@joongang.co.kr]