Chelsea sale finally set for completion this week
The club’s takeover by a consortium led by Todd Boehly, the co-owner of the LA Dodgers, has been held up by government concerns
The sale of Chelsea is expected to be signed off this week with Roman Abramovich understood to be prepared to agree to legally binding guarantees that a £1.6 billion loan to the club will not go to the Russian oligarch or his family, according to sources close to the process.
The club’s takeover by a consortium led by Todd Boehly, the co-owner of the LA Dodgers, has been held up by government concerns over the debt owed by Chelsea’s parent company, Frodsham, to the Jersey-registered Camberley International Investments.
The signing of legally binding guarantees will allow the money to go into a frozen account under government control, sources said.
The sale of the club had been held up by government concerns over a debt owed to Chelsea’s parent company
The sale of the club had been held up by government concerns over a debt owed to Chelsea’s parent company
The Times has also learnt that Demetris Ioannides, the Cypriot lawyer who has been a close aide of Abramovich’s for two decades, resigned on May 10 as the trustee of the trust which owns Camberley International. Sources close to Camberley have said that as an EU national he was unable to continue in the role owing to a package of sanctions brought in by the European Union.
The debt has proved an obstacle, according to some of those involved in the sale process, because Ioannides had been reluctant to sign any agreement to write it off in case it makes him liable to future legal action from the beneficiaries of the trust. It is understood however that a solution was found which indemnified the trustee against legal action. The Camberley source also said that the UK and Jersey governments had to give approval to the sale.