English Premier League club Chelsea said on May 28 that a "final and definitive agreement" concluded overnight should clear the way for the sports world's highest-ever team sale amid sanctions on Chelsea's billionaire Russian owner.
AP reported a $3.2 billion sale price for oligarch Roman Abramovich's stake in Chelsea in a deal the club said would be formalized on May 30.
"Chelsea Football Club can confirm that a final and definitive agreement was entered into last night to sell the Club to the Todd Boehly/Clearlake Capital consortium," the team said in a statement. "It is expected that the transaction will be completed on Monday."
The purchaser is a consortium fronted by Boehly, a part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.
The sale is a response to unprecedented Western sanctions against Abramovich and other Russian elite and Moscow interests that have followed President Vladimir Putin's launch of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine three months ago.
Abramovich is a former Chukotka governor who has parlayed his acumen and contacts into one of Russia's biggest fortunes, estimated by Forbes at around $14.5 billion just a few years ago.
His purchase of Chelsea in 2003 was among the first of a wave of Russians' deals to acquire major stakes in Western sports teams.
"It has been nearly three months since I announced my intention to sell Chelsea FC," Abramovich acknowledged in a farewell message hinting at the sanctions put in place after Russia's invasion began on February 24.
Abramovich has suggested the proceeds from the Chelsea sale should go to a charity to support victims of the Russian war on Ukraine, but the British government was reportedly demanding assurances that the money would not go to Abramovich or his relatives.
