The sister of Chargers owner Dean Spanos, Dea Spanos Berberian, “appears to have backed off her push to force her brother to sell the team,” but she is still “suing him, and other family members," according to Daniel Kaplan of THE ATHLETIC. Berberian is suing “in a long-running dispute over the family trust that owns 36 percent of the team.” She filed the initial lawsuit on April 1, 2021, “charging the trust is deeply in debt, and the only solution is a team sale to fund the estate-planning vehicle’s charitable obligations.” Berberian in previous California state court filings “pointed to a Nov. 8, 2019, letter from her brother in which he agreed to hire an investment bank to sell the team in 2024, a timeline she argued is too long (a source close to Spanos has long countered that the letter only says he would consider a sale).” In court papers this week, Berberian “suggests that a sale might not be necessary because of rapidly rising NFL team valuations and the league’s plush new media deals." Kaplan noted what she is saying "is that because the value of the Chargers has risen so much since April 2021, a sale of just the trust’s interest in the team might alone solve the red ink issue." Sixty percent of the team is owned by the four Spanos siblings -- Dean, Dea, Alexis Spanos Ruhl and Michael Spanos (15% each) (THEATHLETIC.com, 8/11).
