Chelsea were in danger of liquidation before 2022 takeover

Chelsea were in danger of going out of business in 2022 due to the immense financial pressure on the club prior to BlueCo’s takeover led by Todd Boehly.

As an asset of Roman Abramovich, Chelsea found themselves subjected to sanctions by the UK government as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the oligarch’s longstanding ties to Vladimir Putin and the Russian state.

The club was granted a special license to continue operating from a sporting perspective. But there were bans on ticket and merchandise sales as part of the asset freeze. By the time Raine Group, appointed to oversee the takeover process, reached the point where ownership could be transferred from Abramovich to Boehly’s consortium, Chelsea were in desperate need.

Joe Ravitch, co-founder and partner of Raine, has explained that the single most important instruction from UK officials was ensuring that proceeds did not benefit Abramovich.

"We ended up taking a far more proactive role than we usually do in these circumstances. We had far more latitude," Ravitch told The Times.

"When Eugene Tenenbaum [Chelsea director] was also sanctioned, I called him and said, 'Who's my client, what do we do?' He said, 'We're still your client but you have to make the decisions now — please save Chelsea.'"

"If we hadn't got the deal done by the time we did, Chelsea would have probably gone into liquidation. There would have been catastrophic consequences. We forcibly boiled the bidders into four separate consortia. We put the four groups together and we crafted what we hoped would be the best deal, which would maximise the value to the charitable foundation that was being set up [for victims of the war in Ukraine] and maximise investment in the club.

"All four groups, we felt, would be good owners."

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