With the bids for the ownership of Chelsea FC whittled down to three, all Chelsea supporters will be hoping that the process can be completed as quickly as possible. The bidding process seems to have taken an age and has compounded an already heightened emotional state.
Since the beginning of March, supporters have endured Roman Abramovich deciding to relinquish control and then being forced to sell the club. And then the bidding process, which for the main part has appeared as unseemly as a bunch of licentious, old rich men eyeing up girls in a seedy nightclub.
It has felt tacky and shaming, but there has been little we as supporters can do. We might see ourselves as the most important cog in the football wheel, but we have been left on the outside, looking in; noses pressed against the shop window watching in bewilderment at the goings on inside.
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The drama and daily news coverage on the front and back pages has turned the club in to a soap opera and it has been draining for all involved. While Thomas Tuchel and the players initially did a fantastic job of keeping outside distractions away from their bubble, the last few weeks since the international break seem to have punctured it.
They, like the supporters, seem to be dragged down by the uncertainty and the threat of change that new ownership will bring. At a time when they would be looking ahead to summer transfer activity, in terms of arrivals and departures that might help to determine their own future at the club, it has been put on hold until the ownership is resolved.
Tuchel admitted after the defeat of West Ham on Sunday, that the inability of the club to negotiate with Antonio Rudiger had in part led to his now confirmed departure to Real Madrid in the summer. Tuchel, like us, seems to have had enough of the takeover proceedings, judging by his uncharacteristic lethargy and disinterest on the touchline.
But there is hope in sight. We are led to believe that a decision by Chelsea FC and the Raine Group as to which bid will go forward to be ratified by the Government is imminent. Whether that will be this week or not, we just don’t know, but the sale must be concluded by the end of the season when the Government’s licence runs out. Of course, they can extend this, but if not, the consequences for Chelsea really would be existential.
The four short-listed bids quickly became three as the Ricketts bid surprisingly unravelled at the final hurdle. Many Chelsea supporters were delighted by this. If the family’s history of racism and homophobia were not bad enough, then their history of owning the Chicago Cubs should have provided warning enough as to what their reign at Chelsea may have brought. As for the remaining three bids, they all look plausible in their own different ways
The ‘Boehly Bid’, interested in buying Chelsea three years ago had already done much of their due diligence. They have a lot of experience in media rights and digital market shares as well as running the LA Dodgers, a successful American sports franchise.
The money is coming from fund managers Clearlake Capital, Ted Boehly and Mark Walter (co-owners of the Dodgers), Hans Wyss and London property investor and Spurs fan Jonathan Goldstein. They have added long-time Chelsea supporters to the bid team: Conservative peer Lord Daniel Finkelstein, PR executive Barbara Charone and most recently former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
The ‘Broughton Bid’ headed by former British Airways Chairman and long-time Chelsea season ticket holder Sir Martin Broughton also includes long time Chelsea supporter, Conservative peer and World Athletics President Sebastien Coe. Broughton was Liverpool’s Chairman prior to the FSG Group buying the club and therefore has hands on experience of managing an elite Premier League football club
The bid is financed by Josh Harris and Dave Blitzer, who have significant shareholdings in Crystal Palace and NBA side the Philadelphia 76ers and NHL side the New Jersey Devils. Added to that are investment banker Michael Klein, the Tsai family, owners of Cathay Financial Holdings and Fubon Sports & Entertainment and interestingly the Rogers family, who as owners of Rogers Communications, the Canadian equivalent of Sky or BT, were formerly employers of Chelsea’s current CEO Guy Laurence.
Laurence left as CEO of Vodafone UK to join Rogers Communications as CEO before leaving to become Chelsea’s CEO. No doubt he will know Sir Martin Broughton through his dealings with BA as CEO of Vodafone, one of their biggest clients.
The Broughton bid have also added Lewis Hamilton and Serena Williams, neither of whom are Chelsea supporters, in either a publicity stunt or an attempt to appease the desire for more diversity and inclusion in football, something Roman Abramovich took very seriously during his ownership of the club.
The third bid is headed by Stephen Pagliuca, co-owner of the Boston Celtics and Atalanta and Larry Tanenbaum the NBA Chairman. To this is added a plethora of American businessmen and financiers such as Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin, venture capitalist Jim Breyer, Disney CEO Bob Iger, GSW Dodgers and LAFC co-owner Peter Guber and Baine Capital co-founder Raj Ganguly.
Interestingly the hitherto ‘floating’ finance from the True Blue Consortium, backed by former Chelsea players John Terry and Clare Rafferty, have come out in favour of the Pagliuca bid. True Blue are attempting to put a stake of £10million toward the bid and are offering Chelsea supporters the chance to buy a share for £100. In return, supporters will have a 'voice' being represented by a True Blue director, elected to the main Chelsea FC board.
It all sounds great, but are they really offering anything more or different from what is already offered by the Chelsea Pitch Owners or for free by the Chelsea Supporters' Trust? Commercialising and profiting from what supporters have every right to demand for free doesn’t sit well with me and the whiff of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) associated with the consortium has not been entirely dispelled either.
One of these bids will become the next owners of Chelsea FC. They all have pros and cons and all of them have talked a good game, especially to organisations such as the Chelsea Pitch Owners and the Chelsea Supporters Trust. They have indicated that they may be prepared to waive the CPO debt; rebuild the stadium on the current site, being open to Golden Shares, Shadow Boards, supporter representation on the Board and continuing to invest in the team. They are all saying exactly want the supporters want to hear.
So, what’s the catch? In reality things may well be entirely different, and the truth is we just cannot know now how it will pan out.
Whoever the new owners are, it will require a massive degree of trust on all sides and a leap of faith. The supporters will not know whether the owners are good, bad or indifferent for months, if not years and by then the damage may well have been done.
It is therefore no surprise that Abramovich is doing everything to protect his legacy by putting in clauses for the sale such as not selling a controlling stake in the club for at least 10 years and committing investment of £1billion to a rebuild of the stadium, the academy and women's team.
These clauses will be incorporated in the sale contract, making it legally enforceable. But one wonders how enforceable they will be. The Chelsea Supporters’ Trust does not have the advantage of drawing up a legally enforceable contract with any of the bidders. Much as they would like legally binding commitments to the points they have lobbied for so successfully over the last couple of months, anything other than a tacit agreement is unlikely.
The Chelsea Supporters’ Trust commitments were drawn heavily from the ‘Fan Led Review’ and indeed the Fan Led Review’s idea of a Golden Share drew on Chelsea’s experience with the Chelsea Pitch Owners which, thankfully, ring fences the ground and the club’s name from owners with bad intentions.
It is therefore very encouraging that the Government have announced that all 10 key recommendations of the Fan Led Review will be put forward for legislation, although it is unlikely to be passed into law before 2024.
Personally, it can’t come soon enough, and it is unconscionable of the Government that they didn’t use Chelsea as a test case for the Fan Led Review recommendations as part of the sales process. No doubt the self-absorbed and self-interested Premier League i.e. the club owners’ collective will fight tooth and nail to prevent as many of the Fan Led Review recommendations become legislation.
They’ve spent most of the last year publicly briefing against the Football Supporters Association, disingenuously suggesting that they will come up with their own recommendations for football governance and supporter engagement in the summer.
My experience dealing with the Premier League tells me this will most likely be more box ticking exercises and will be insincere and not to be trusted. Their track record with major issues such as fixture times and allowing the broadcasters to get away with anything points to how little they care about supporters. They will no doubt increase their Parliamentary lobbying as a consequence of the announcement.
Sadly, it has all come too late for the imminent change in ownership for Chelsea. The new owners will already be in situ and established for at least two years by the time the legislation comes into law. We may have a clearer idea of how genuine and trustworthy the new owners are by that time, but to have all of the points the Trust have asked for enshrined in forthcoming legislation will be a massive weapon in the supporter’s armoury and may also give them additional leverage in current negotiations.
However, in the here and now, with all the potential new owners saying all the right things, it would be a mistake to take it all at face value. The facts are plain and simple. Whoever ends up owning Chelsea are not doing it out of philanthropy or altruism. The bids are all backed and financed by very rich individuals and investment fund management companies. There is one reason and one reason alone why they want to buy and invest in Chelsea and that is for a return on that investment and profit.
And of course, any money going into their pockets is less money that can be spent on strengthening the squad, rebuilding the stadium or keeping ticket prices at affordable levels. The best that supporters can hope for right now is that the takeover process is concluded as quickly as possible to limit any more damage to Chelsea’s season and transfer business.
In the longer term, a combination of the Chelsea Supporters Trust and legislation on football governance can hopefully protect and ring-fence the club from the worst case scenario with new owners.
