Chelsea directors Buck and Granovskaia set to share in £50m takeover bonus pool
Chelsea directors including chairman Bruce Buck and Marina Granovskaia are set to receive multimillion pound bonuses once the sale of the club is completed, according to reports.
Buck and Granovskaia will share in £50m once a consortium led by Todd Boehly, part-owner of the LA Dodgers baseball team, complete its takeover, according to The Times.
The duo are part of a team that helped to choose Boehly as the preferred bidder once the sale of the club was narrowed down to four buyers.
Chelsea were put up for sale by Roman Abramovich – who has had control of the Blues since 2003 – in March, shortly before the oligarch was sanctioned by the UK government following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This followed fears that the deal – worth over £4.25bn once decade-long commitments to the club are factored in – could fall through amid doubts were raised over where the frozen funds raised from the sale of the club would go.
The Times also report that issues surrounding the club’s loan owed to Abramovich – around £1.6bn – have been resolved.
That would clear the way for a deal to be completed before the club’s special government-issued operating licence runs out at the end of the month.
Earlier this week, former Unicef UK chief Mike Penrose emerged as a potential candidate to lead the formation of a foundation which would look after the proceeds of the sale and distribute them to the victims of the war in Ukraine.
This was seen as a solution to Whitehall fears over whether the sale proceeds would end up.
“If we can remove politics from the creation of this foundation, we could do something remarkable and change the life of millions of conflict-affected people,” Penrose said.
Granovskaia is a Russian-Canadian citizen who has been a key aide to Abramovich for more than a decade.
She has been ranked in Forbes’ top five most powerful women in international sports in 2018.
Buck, who became chairman shortly after Abramovich bought Chelsea, is in the running to stay in a role he has held for almost two decades when the takeover is completed.