Major backer of the Ricketts Family's Ken Griffin has travelled to London to hold more face to face talks with Chelsea as their consortium aim to gain a significant advantage on competitors, despite a warning from former Manchester United star Gary Neville.
With each party now preparing their respective pitches to Raine and senior figures at Chelsea, the race to become Roman Abramovich's successor is well and truly on with the four groups primed to make their pitches with the end of April the decisive time. The Ricketts Family, struggling against a social media backlash, have already outlined their eight-point plan for the club going forward with more details on the Stamford Bridge redevelopment surfacing on Tuesday.
Atalanta owner Steve Pagliuca, like his competitors who have all reached out for more external funding, has reportedly spoken to former Walt Disney chief Bob Iger about further backing as he makes his big move. Todd Boehly and Sir Martin Broughton have been among the quietest of the quartet of interested parties, but this doesn't take away from their genuine interest to purchase the club. Boehly is said to want to oversee a Liverpool-style revolution which has been viewed as an attractive proposal for many of the Chelsea faithful.
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Thomas Tuchel has already outlined on Tuesday again what he wants to see from any new owner and Griffin is expected to take more of a hands-on approach to try and convince the German coach and the fans that they are the best stewards for the club. The Telegraph state that the man with a net worth of more than £20billion has aligned with certain members of the Ricketts Family to hold talks in person with Chelsea executives ahead of the next deadline in the process, which is currently next Monday.
The report goes on to add that Griffin will meet the likes of Bruce Buck, Marina Granovskaia and Eugene Tenenbaum as the Chicago Cubs owners look to different avenues to try and gain the advantage over the trio of competitors vying for the Blues. Spokesperson for Griffin, Zia Ahmed confirmed this news: "Ken is joining the Ricketts team in London this week."
It's a move that is unlikely to go well down with the Chelsea fanbase, who made their voices clear at the protest that was staged against this bid prior to the Brentford humiliation at the weekend. Amid a difficult landscape, Sky Sports pundit Neville stated that the best option may be for the family to back out of their bid to own the club. "I have to say, if I was the Ricketts family and I was getting that type of hostility on the way in... move away, move away," he said on the latest Sky Sports podcast.
"The fans are important. If you're the government, I don't know if it's the government who are in charge of the bid, or Bruce Buck, or the organisation appointed by Roman Abramovich - but I would say that we have to make sure that the biggest clubs in the country, we've seen here with the Glazer family, Mike Ashley at Newcastle, it drains the life. Not just out of the club, but out of the city and everyone watching. That cannot happen at football clubs. It's not just about best bids, it's about what the fans want. The Ricketts family are trying to reach out to Chelsea fans, but they do have some historic issues that need dealing with and explaining. At this moment in time, they are not being explained very well.
"In this current light, with what's happened with the Super League, Big Picture, Derby, Bury, what's happened with all of these issues with Roman Abramovich and the links to Putin [something Abramovich has always denied], we have to start bringing back some sort of moral compass in determining who owns a football club."
