A consortium taking over Chelsea is something new. From wealthy individuals to shady figures, state-backed groups to Oligarchs, owning a club is becoming more and more complex.
Chelsea's heirarchy is simple to understand by modern standards but still has more than one strand to it. Whereas previously Roman Abramovich was the sole owner, investing huge sums of personal wealth through Fortstrum Ltd, there is now a group of people that own the Blues.
Todd Boehly is the most public of them. He is the man spoken about as if he had taken over from Abramovich directly. The semantics usually revolve around him, his decisions and him alone. If something goes wrong, call Boehly. If a transfer is made then it's him that will get the blame or praise for it.
READ MORE : Graham Potter must take advantage of £50m Thomas Tuchel decision to turn around Chelsea form
This is the easiest way of seeing things. He is the man with the previous involvement in sports teams, combining with several other investors to form the Guggenheim Baseball Management group that own the LA Dodgers. There are others, like at Dodgers, that are involved at Chelsea.
The consortium is backed financially by Clearlake Capital, which is where the other main members in the group come from. Hence the often used Boehly/Clearlake reference.
Within Clearlake, an American private equity firm, are two more controlling figures that need to be explained. The first is Jose E Feliciano - he is often grouped in with Boehly and others upon the announcement. Feliciano is the co-founder of Clearlake and is worth an estimated £3.5bn. He has been involved in investement banking at Goldman Sachs and is another active member of ownership group.
It is his partner, Behdad Egbahli, that is perhaps the most interesting character of the lot. He effectively plays second fiddle to Boehly and is at the forefront of the Clearlake side of Boehly/Clearlake. In terms of Chelsea ownership it could be read as Boehly/Eghbali.
These two are the pair seen at the training ground in Cobham, often at matches, in signing announcement photos and also at the pre-season tour of America last summer.
Eghbali is the less public of the two but still has a very important role to play. He is similarly valued at around £3.5bn having formed Clearlake Capital in California in 2006. The company itself says it has more than $70bn (£57.8m) in assets under management.
The Iranian born 46-year-old has previously worked for another private equity firm, TPG Capital but has risen to prominence with Clearlake and nearly doubling in personal value since 2020.
The Washington radio station WJLA, an ABC affiliate in the United States of America, report that he is in the mix to buy part of the Washington Commanders NFL side and that he and Feliciano were looking to expand their sporting portfolios before buying Chelsea.
Franchises linked with the pair have been Denver Broncos and also the Commanders in previous years gone too. On this topic, he has explained the difference between American sports ownership and Premier League takeovers, saying: "One interesting data point, is cumulative market cap, use the Forbes value of NFL teams probably 150-155 billion, the Premier League, La Liga, France, Italy I think you're probably 30 billion, fanbases of maybe 3-4 billion globally compared to 200 million and that's being generous to the NFL.
"A league and a sport that is optimised, clearly not everything is created equal but a four billion fanbase on a cumulative market gap of 30 billion maybe and cumulative media revenue of five or six billion against 20 for the NFL on 20 times the fanbase globally."
He has also discussed the previous ownership of Chelsea, under Roman Abramovich, and laid out the plans for the club moving forward. Back in December, at the SporticoLive's "Invest in Sports" Summit, he said: "You've got to win. You're content, your asset is that play and I think the opportunity to make it a platform is there. These things are generally not well-managed.
"They're not optimised, some of the US ownership, Fenway Group with Liverpool or Abu Dhabi model with Man City have done it well but for the most part, these things haven't been optimised."
When it comes to his more recent work at Chelsea he has played a big part in several transfers already. It has been reported that he led the endgame style talks with Benfica for Joao Felix on deadline day, 'not taking no for an answer' and eventually securing a club record deal.
It is also believed that Egbahli was part of the group that went abroad in order to finalise a deal for Mykhailo Mudryk, sniffing out the chance of a transfer being done and getting it across the line quickly and efficiently.
Outside of this it is also worth noting that Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss and Mark Walter from Guggenheim partners are also invested in Chelsea and form part of the consortium.
READ NEXT:
How much it will cost Chelsea to sack Graham Potter as Todd Boehly faces tough decision
Why Mason Mount has not signed a new Chelsea contract amid Liverpool transfer interest
Chelsea provide positive update on Cesar Azpilicueta after suffering concussion injury
Zinedine Zidane delivers fresh management return verdict amid Chelsea Graham Potter decision
Chelsea news and transfers LIVE: All the latest news, rumours and gossip from Stamford Bridge
