Private equity billionaire Steve Pagliuca is in talks with co-investors as he looks to strengthen his bid for the ownership of Chelsea ahead of next week's final deadline.
Pagliuca made it to the second round of bidding alongside Todd Boehly's consortium; the Ricketts family bid; and another consortium fronted by Sir Martin Broughton. The next deadline for final offers falls on Monday, April 11 with the aim being to present the winning offer to the government for approval in the week beginning April 18.
One of the figures Pagliuca has approached for help is former Walt Disney chief Bob Iger, according to a report from Sky News. Iger's predecessor, Michael Eisner, has already stepped into football ownership, having purchased Portsmouth in 2017.
The level of financial investment Iger would bring to Pagliuca's bid remains unclear, but adding such a prominent name is unlikely to harm it. All four parties are carrying out meetings with Chelsea board members, staff and the club's advisors, Raine Group.
The Chelsea Supporters Trust, however, issued a statement this week claiming that they were yet to be contacted by the Pagliuca, unlike his rivals, while other bidders, including the controversial Ricketts family, have already spoken of commitments they would carry out if they were to be successful in their bid.
Roman Abramovich is selling the club he has owned for 19 years and as things stand, Chelsea are unable to make any new signings or negotiate contracts for players like Antonio Rudiger - who will become a free agent this summer as things stand - due to the terms of the Government licence they were granted in the wake of Abramovich being hit by sanctions.
Pagliuca, the majority owner of Serie A side Atalanta, shares similar sentiments to rival Boehly in his data analysis-driven approach which could bode well for him with the majority of Chelsea fans keen on a new direction from the loose spending of the previous regime.
“We’d all read Moneyball, (a book that would later be turned into a film that documented how Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, used data analysis to recruit players), and thought there would be some applicability to that in basketball,” he told the Goldman Sachs crowd via the Athletic.
“We were one of the first people to do this in 2002… since then, we’ve got better and better, using state of the art tools.
“A customised video for each player is made which will say this is what the player you’re covering is going to do, whether he shoots from his left 60 per cent of the time etc. The staff have embraced it, the report doesn’t just sit there.
“Some see it as a waste of money. But when those players (the 2008 winning team) left, we began to rebuild with the same strategy and the fans stuck with us.”
