The Premier League club said on Thursday that the BlueCo group, which purchased Chelsea last year, had signed an agreement to become shareholders of French club Racing Strasbourg.
BlueCo will invest in Strasbourg’s first teams and academy, while Marc Keller will remain the club’s president, having been in charge since 2012, when the club was at risk of being liquidated.
Strasbourg moved up from the third tier to Ligue 1 where they have played the previous 6 seasons, winning the French League Cup in 2019. Last season, they finished 15th in Ligue 1.
Keller said in a statement, “This is an important day for Racing (Club de Strasbourg). It’s something my shareholder friends and I have been thinking about for the past two years. ” He added, “We’ve built a club that’s healthy at every level and well managed. Although there was no financial urgency, we were aware that we had reached the ceiling of our model. If we wanted to continue driving Racing forward and projecting it into a new dimension, we necessarily needed to be accompanied by a solid structure capable of supporting our development and our ambition.”
Details of the investment were not made public, although The Guardian reported the consortium will have close to 100% ownership having paid 75 million euros ($82.13 million).