LONDON — The British government on Tuesday moved closer to giving its blessing to the purchase of Chelsea F.C., one of European soccer’s blue-ribbon teams, by an American-led investment group after deciding it had sufficient assurances that none of the proceeds from the record sale price — $3.1 billion — would flow to the club’s Russian owner.
The government’s pending approval, expected as soon as Wednesday, signaled the end of not only the most expensive deal in sports history but possibly the most fraught, cryptic and political, too.
In the three months since the Russian oligarch who owns Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, hurriedly put his team on the market, the club’s fate has played out not only on the fields of some of world soccer’s richest competitions but in the corridors of power at Westminster and the soaring towers of Wall Street.