Todd Boehly and Mark Walter have held talks about selling their shares in Chelsea to Clearlake Capital.
Clearlake currently owns 61.5 per cent of the club, while Boehly, Walter and Hansjorg Wyss each own a 12.8 per cent stake.
Clearlake, under the leadership of Behdad Eghbali and Jose Feliciano, effectively run the club even though Boehly is the chairman.
Boehly was the face of the consortium which bought the club four years ago in a £2.5bn deal.
In March 2025, Boehly said Chelsea’s owners could go their separate ways if they could not agree on the future of Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea bosses are considering whether to leave Stamford Bridge or to expand, with Earl’s Court seen as a possible new location.
All options are being evaluated, with the project said to be complicated by the limited space in London to build.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Boehly 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.”
There had been tensions too between Boehly and Clearlake in 2024.
Sky Sports News reported in September 2024 that Boehly had been unhappy with the way the club is being run and that he did not want Mauricio Pochettino to lose his job as head coach in May 2024.
Enzo Maresca replaced Pochettino and went on to win the Conference League and Club World Cup, but he left at the start of 2026, with Chelsea eventually finishing 10th and without European football.
Xabi Alonso was appointed as the new manager this summer, with the Blues spending over £280m on 12 new signings.
‘Boehly exit would be positive for Chelsea’
Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly could sell his stake in the club
Daily Mail’s Riath Al-Samarrai speaking on Sky Sports News’ Paper Talk:
“It’s been a very uneasy alliance, almost from the get-go.
“There have been some pretty notable sort of differences in opinion. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I always go back to one of the sort of turning points: Pochettino leaving.
“All the information we had was that Boehly wanted him to stay, but Clearlake were on the other side of that, and that’s a fairly sort of big one for an ownership group not to be agreeing on.
“I actually think this will be a positive thing for Chelsea. I’m not necessarily sure either of them are particularly loved, but if he goes, then it creates maybe a little bit of clarity behind the scenes.
“But this is still contingent on Clearlake stumping up the money for him to accept.
“We know as well that his real kind of control of the club, the chairmanship, is going to expire next summer. There was always that thought in the background that that would be a point when there might be a natural parting of the ways, but it appears to be coming a little bit sooner.”
