Chelsea bidder and supporter Lord Sebastien Coe has urged the club to complete a takeover as soon as possible, warning of the consequences that may come from dragging the process out. It comes after Todd Boehly’s consortium was reportedly chosen as the preferred bidder.
The takeover saga is nearing its third month now, after owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK Government following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While his assets were frozen, the club was placed under a special sporting licence, putting restrictions on how it operates.
US Banking firm Raine Group was put in charge of the takeover process, eventually bringing the options down to three consortiums, led by: Sir Martin Broughton, Steve Pagliuca and Todd Boehly. It was the latter that was selected as the preferred bidder, but not before a last minute bid from Sir Jim Ratcliffe to add another twist to the saga.
READ MORE: Todd Boehly handed huge boost in Chelsea takeover amid £1.6bn Abramovich problem
Following that announcement, there have since been reports that there are fears over Abramovich requesting his £1.6billion loan repaid to him, despite previously saying that wouldn’t be the case. With the sporting licence expiring at the end of the month, culture secretary Nadine Dorries has already warned that Chelsea are on "borrowed time".
Bidder Lord Sebastien Coe has also joined Dorries in warning the club to complete the takeover as quickly as possible. Coe, the president of world athletics, was a bidder in the takeover as part of the Sir Martin Broughton consortium, and is also a lifelong Chelsea fan.
Speaking on LBC on Tuesday morning, he said: "I joined Martin's bid with one simple proposition - I'm a Chelsea fan of more than 50 years. I was in the ground in 1967, I was born near the ground and still have a house there.
"For me it was always about the club having the best possible ownership, one that was recognising one very simple fact- that is you don't really own a club, you're the stewards of a community sports organisation. At this moment the one thing I hope we end up with is a swift set of solutions to this.
"As someone who's been involved in sport, there is a vacuum here if we're not careful, which is going to impact on the players, it's certainly going to impact on the coaching. To be sitting in a stadium where you're regularly 10,000 fans down because you can't sell seats, there is a problem here.
"The rest of the decisions have to be made properly, there is a process and this is a one-off. You don't see clubs being sold in these circumstances so the Government will have to be really clear what it wants out of this."
It remains to be seen if a conclusion will be reached soon, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. With the sporting licence expiring at the end of the month though, there isn’t much time left to get a deal done as it stands.
