Since February 3, 2022, the day Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic announced that he had decided to sell the club, and till now, the Premier League club have not lacked interested suitors or potential buyers.
Bids have been tumbling over the other, with the latest offer of $3.5 billion coming from the Saudi Media Group; operated by Chelsea fan, Mohamed Al Khereiji, who is the highest bidder as of now.
According to reports, there are now at least 20 bidders for the UEFA Champions League holders, but the call on who eventually wins the bidding war may be decided by the United Kingdom Government, who is in principle, running the club after Abramovich was dispossessed.
The fans have not had much to say in all of these. In fact, they couldn’t buy tickets for the club’s FA Cup quarter-final away at Middlesbrough this weekend. This is one of the fallouts of the sanctions on Abramovich and the seizure of his assets by the UK government, as part of the retaliatory crackdown on oligarchs over the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, whom they are accused of having close ties with.
Apart from the unserious clash Chelsea fans had with the French riot police on Wednesday night chanting “Roman Abramovich”, in the second leg of their Round of 16 clash with Lille, in which they progressed to the quarter-final 4-1 on aggregate, some of them have only spoken against a proposed bid by Chicago clubs owners; the Rickets family, after their father, Joe, in a leaked 2012 email described Islam as “a cult”.
Joe also came under fire for a comment he reportedly made in 2019, in which he said “Muslims are my enemies”. It was stated that the family was preparing a mega offer for the cub.
“Christians and Jews can have a mutual respect for each other to create a civil society. As you know, Islam cannot do that. Therefore we cannot ever let Islam become a large part of our society,” Ricketts was quoted as saying in the email.
“Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy due to their deep antagonism and bias against non-Muslims.”
So, who should buy Chelsea, now that the Russian has been sidelined after being caught in-between international politics and war?
Here is a list of some of the bidders and the proposed amount
- Saudi Media Group $3.5 billion
- Sir Martin Broughton £2.9billion
- The Ricketts family £2.7billion
- Nick Candy £2.5billion
- Todd Boehly £2.2billion
- Woody Johnson £2billion
- Hansjorg Wyss (looking for consortium consisting of six to seven investors).
