Would Todd Boehly sell? Chelsea takeover ‘very hard’ after £3.5bn investment as Blues fans warned protests against American owners will count for little

The Premier League heavyweights were the subject of a £4.25 billion ($5bn) takeover in May 2022, as Roman Abramovich saw his reign at Stamford Bridge come to close. Huge sums of money have been pumped into the club since then, including over £1bn ($1.3bn) on transfer fees, but little return has been seen.

That has led to disgruntlement among the fanbase, with there now calls for Boehly and Co. to sell up and move on. It is, however, considered to be unlikely that another deal will be done in west London as the Blues’ current board overpaid initially and still have ambitious plans – which include a potential new stadium – up their sleeve.

Football finance expert Stefan Borson has told Football Insider when asked about the prospect of Chelsea coming back onto the market: “Boehly did a keynote on Thursday at the FT Business Summit. He was impressive actually. He spoke a lot of American. He spoke a lot about Netflix and how he believed that the Premier League content was as close to Netflix as you could get from a global perspective, just because football is a global sport almost uniquely.

“He clearly sees the opportunities for the media perspective going forward. He paid a very rich price for Chelsea based on his experiences I think in American sport and, therefore, what the potential value of English clubs could be.

“I think the chances of them selling are low and it would be very hard to find a buyer who would bail them out of what they’ve invested to date, which is probably close to £3.5 billion by now. They have also still got the stadium issue.

“I think it’s been too expensive and that they overpaid. If they can do everything that they want to do with English football as leaders of that disruption in terms of changes to the game, changes to the way it monetises itself, then clearly, they can still make a return. But it’s been a very expensive project, so I think it’d be very hard to find somebody that would take them out completely.”

Chelsea remain in the hunt for major silverware this season, having reached the last-16 of the Europa Conference League, but have found consistency hard to come by in domestic competition of late and face a fight to the finish in a congested bid to claim Champions League qualification spots.