As many as 200 prospective bidders have registered interest in buying Chelsea following Roman Abramovich's decision to sell the club, according to the Guardian. The Raine Group have been tasked with handling the sale have marked today as the deadline for takeover proposals.
The west London side, which is in a state of limbo following the UK Government's decision to sanction the Russian billionaire, is courted interest from some of the world's richest people, but a handful of names have hit the headlines more than others. A consortium led by Hansjörg Wyss, Todd Boehly and Jonathan Goldstein has reportedly submitted an offer in the region of £2bn.
Meanwhile, there is also interest from Woody Johnson, the owner of the NFL's New York Jets, the Ricketts family, who own the MLB's Chicago Cubs, British property tycoon Nick Candy and Saudi Media. So, Daniel Childs spoke to football. london's chief writer Alan Smith live on the Carefree Chelsea show to get to the bottom of the Blues' ongoing ownership saga.
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Smith began by detailing why the coverage of prospective bidders has been so unusual before hinting why Chelsea's next owner could be lurking in the shadows.
"If you were to come to me in a couple of weeks and say the new Chelsea owner is x-person, x-group that we haven't heard of by now, I wouldn't be surprised," he said. "The way these things tends to play out, they play out in secrecy. The legal issues mean that you don't tend to find out until the very last minute.
"But, since the very beginning of this process before Abramovich was sanctioned, a lot of people were speaking about this publicly, and they were happy for their spokesperson to come out and make statements saying x-man is about to table a bid which is quite unusual."
Smith continued by delving into the chance of American ownership at Stamford Bridge and how prospective bidders must have a wealth of experience in the sporting sector.
"In terms of just the number of different groups interested, the vast majority are American, so going off probability would seem more likely," he said. "Also, all of the noises in the background from the last two days or so has been that there is a preference to have an owner who already has experience in operating a big sports team.
"We know a number of these American groups have experience of that. Viewing that as key criteria as part of the application process is entirely logical.
"You don't want to have someone who comes in without any experience. They might have the best intention at heart, but if they don't know what they're doing, the club could be in free fall pretty quickly."
