The race is no longer done in threes, but in fours. This Friday morning, the British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, founder of Ineos, transmitted an offer to buy the Chelsea club, up to 4 billion pounds sterling (4.77 billion euros), according to the very serious English media SkySports and The Times. This late offer is therefore part of the race to buy the London club, on which three projects have already positioned themselves.
Jim Ratcliffe’s bid appears huge compared to the others in the running so far, all of which were around £2 billion. Other suitors include the offer of former Liverpool chairman Sir Martin Broughton, joined last week by Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton and former tennis world No. 1 Serena Williams. Stephen Pagliuca, owner of the Boston Celtics NBA franchise, is also in the race, as is Todd Boehly, co-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA and the Dodgers, baseball team in Los Angeles.
Possible imbroglio for the Champions League
If Jim Ratcliffe bought Chelsea, it could be a problem if OGC Nice and the London club qualify for the Champions League. Indeed, the same owner cannot have two clubs qualified simultaneously for the most beautiful of European cups. This scenario had already arisen with RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg, but the Austrian club had been authorized to participate because, officially, Red Bull is only the main sponsor of the club.
OGC Nice is currently 5th in Ligue 1, two points from third place four days from the end of the championship. Chelsea, for their part, are ranked 3rd in the Premier League, and should easily qualify for a new Champions League final phase, after winning the title last year.
Roman Abramovich, the Russian-Israeli billionaire who has owned the London club since 2003, decided in early March to put it up for sale a few days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The oligarch had clarified yesterday that he was expecting from the three offers in the race for the takeover an increase of 500 million pounds in order to finance a charitable fund project for the benefit of the victims of the war in Ukraine. Jim Ratcliffe’s offer should delight him.