Todd Boehly profiled - American mogul in consortium to buy Chelsea

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has put the club up for sale amid growing tensions in the country after the invasion of Ukraine from Russia.

There have already been several interested in purchasing the Blues, including American mogul Todd Boehly - but who is he?

A former wrestler at school, Boehly has ascended quickly in the world of business and has ran several enterprises during his career.

He is currently the co-founder, chairman, CEO and controlling member of Eldridge Industries, while also being the current interim CEO of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as of October 2021.

Boehly owns 20 per cent of the Los Angeles Dodgers but his dealings with the baseball team have been questioned.

Ahead of the 2021 season, the Dodgers had paid the highest luxury tax and also forked out the most in wages.

Last year, they had a $285million (£212m) payroll, which is the second-highest in MLB history - behind their own $291m (£217m) salary in 2015.

Boehly also previously led one of the largest collateralised loan obligation transactions in history which amounted over $1billion.

That means he has taken out a loan to buy the franchise, using the franchise's money to pay for the loan.

It is similar to what The Glazers did with Manchester United, which has seen them come under huge fire from their fans, though their loan obligation transactions was a fraction of what Boehly's was.

That could spell danger for Chelsea fans, who have been used to Abramovich's spending at the club relatively freely.

And this is not the businessman's first venture into football and was very recently in the market to snap up an American team called Washington Spirit, who play in the the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL).

Boehly was heading an ownership group that held exclusive negotiations to purchase a controlling interest in the club in December 2021.

But it was reported that just a month later, the Eldridge Industries chief had withdrawn from negotiations after it was reported that he had underestimated the complexity of the sale of the Spirit.

Boehly has had previous in the Premier League trying to purchase a football club and came close in 2019 when he made a bid for Tottenham.

According to The Athletic, he was in 'advanced negotiations' to buy the club for approximately £2.3bn.

However, no final agreement was reached and the deal fell through with Daniel Levy retaining ownership.

But Boehly did not just look at Spurs and had actually also made a move to buy Chelsea in the same year when there were murmurs that Abramovich wanted to sell up.

His bid, just shy of $3bn (£2.24bn), was rejected by the Russian but his interest has remained with a deal in the pipeline ahead of the weekend.

It has been suggested that whoever purchases Chelsea could complete a deal before their next home match at Stamford Bridge on 13 March.