Twists, turns and tight deadlines: how Boehly’s Chelsea deal was done

Chelsea can finally think about the future. One of the strangest, most unpredictable, most politically charged episodes in the history of English football is finally over. Roman Abramovich has left the building and Todd Boehly’s consortium has taken control of Chelsea after the UK government granted permission for the £4.25bn takeover to go through with a week to go before the club’s special operating licence was due to expire.

That date, 31 May, had loomed large in the diary. It felt fraught with danger when government sources suggested the deal was in danger of collapsing because of fears that Abramovich wanted to renege on his promise to write off his £1.6bn loan to the club. The wildest scenarios had Chelsea going bust if they missed the sale deadline and, given all the twists and turns over the past three months, it was not always easy to be entirely confident that the story was going to end with Boehly’s group promising to give Thomas Tuchel significant funds to rebuild his squad.

The only way to cope has been to suspend your disbelief ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February made Abramovich’s 19-year ownership of Chelsea untenable. Events moved swiftly after the Russian oligarch was named in parliament by the Labour MP Chris Bryant, who said that the 55-year-old was identified by the Home Office in 2019 as having links to the Russian state and to “corrupt activity and practices”. The writing was on the wall. Abramovich, who had instructed the US bank Raine to begin the search for a new owner, knew the game was up.

Hansjörg Wyss, an 86-year-old Swiss billionaire, had already said he was interested in buying Chelsea by the time Abramovich confirmed his intention to sell on 2 March. The process was