Prospective buyers of Chelsea have until 9pm GMT to submit their bids, with the US bank running the process, Raine Group, warning that the first offer may be viewed as final Several bids have already been made, including from the frontrunning Todd Boehly-led consortium, with a number of interested parties scrambling to finalise their offers before the deadline.
As revealed by football.london earlier this week, Raine are expected to evaluate the offers before approaching the government with a leading bid and an application to have the terms of the special operating licence amended. Senior government officials have indicated that once there is clear evidence disqualified owner Roman Abramovich will not receive any money from the sale, the licence will be changed to allow a sale to proceed forward. There are unlikely to be any other hard demands from Westminster.
It will then be up to the nominated group to satisfy the Premier League ’s Owners’ and Directors’ test before completing the final paperwork for a deal to be completed. Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive, has previously said that could take ten days.
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“I think the quickest one we have ever done is 10 days but that's not to say that that record cannot be beaten,” Masters told the Financial Times Business of Football Summit. “Normally it will take a number of weeks but that will depend on the complexity of the deal really and the number of potential owners.”
While there is an awareness that a deal for Chelsea needs to be completed quickly, the timescale and exact criteria around Raine reaching a decision over a preferred new owner is unclear. Any group with previous experience of running a sports team will be looked at positively, and that should benefit several of the American based consortiums interested in acquiring the club.
The Ricketts family, owners of the Chicago Cubs baseball club, have already confirmed that they will bid in partnership with hedge fund manager Ken Griffin. Meanwhile, a number of other interested parties have come forwards over recent weeks but it remains to be seen whether any bids will be forthcoming ahead of the deadline.
