Fears of civil war at Chelsea as Todd Boehly’s relationship with Clearlake reaches breaking point

Todd Boehly believes his working relationship with Chelsea co-owners Clearlake Capital is at breaking point and that a resolution must be found to avoid a civil war at Stamford Bridge.

Clearlake and Boehly are prepared to buy each other out. Boehly and his partners are said to have sufficient resources to fund a full takeover but Clearlake has insisted it will not sell any shares.

Behdad Eghbali and Jose E Feliciano own Clearlake, which co-owns Chelsea with Boehly, the American billionaire, who also has a stake in the LA Dodgers.

As reported by Telegraph Sport, Clearlake is adamant it will not sell any of its 61.5 per cent stake and will not allow Chelsea to go up for auction again – silghtly more than two years since Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club.

It has emerged that Boehly that believes he can quickly raise more than £2.5 billion to make an offer to Clearlake that would also give the company, Chelsea’s majority shareholder, a profit on its initial investment

Investors are said to be ready to back Boehly, who is believed to have a 20 to 30-year vision for Chelsea that would include a new stadium. But an offer, however big, could fall on deaf ears if Clearlake maintains its not-for-sale stance.

Clearlake views its investment in Chelsea as a decade-plus commitment and wants to increase its stake, while Boehly sees his involvement as lasting up to three decades.

But a cultural divide has opened up between Chelsea’s co-owners and Boehly has come to the conclusion that the club’s structure has become untenable and a resolution needs to be found as soon as possible.

Boehly’s owns 38.5 per cent of the club, split equally between himself, Hansjorg Wyss and Mark Walter, who have invested around £1 billion of their own money.

There is said to be no prospect of Boehly selling his stake on its own to Eghbali and Feliciano, so Clearlake would also have to buy out Wyss and Walter at a total cost of more than £1.5 billion, to enable both to make a profit.

As part of their co-ownership contract, Clearlake and Boehly have matching rights and blocking options if either side puts their stake in Chelsea up for sale or attempts to sell to a third party.

While there have been claims that relations between Boehly and Clearlake remain professional, there are irreconcilable differences in opinion over the direction of travel and culture of the club.

Should nothing change, there is an increasing sense that a civil war could break out that could be incredibly damaging for Chelsea, on and off the pitch.

Boehly is said to want to spend his first year of ownership putting in place a team to run the club before stepping back from the day-to-day management, Eghbali hastaken a more hands-on approach over the past 18 months and works closely with sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart.

There have been constant changes to the management structure since the Boehly-Clearlake takeover, with former chief executive Chris Jurasek, who has worked for Clearlake for the past 10 years, becoming the latest high-profile departure.

All major decisions have to be signed off by Eghbali, Feliciano and Boehly, which possibly explains why there has been no significant progress on the plans for Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium.

As revealed by Telegraph Sport in March, Chelsea’s owners can pass the chairmanship, which is currently held by Boehly, between them every five years as part of an extraordinary written agreement.

Clearlake intends to nominate its own representative to take the chairmanship at the earliest opportunity in 2027, but it  seems certain that the ownership structure will change before then.