April Deadline For Chelsea Bidders
Final bids for Chelsea Football Club will be submitted on 11th April, meaning that a new owner should take over by the end of next month.
The merchant bank handling the sale of the Premier League club, the Raine Group, has notified potential buyers that binding offers must be made on that date, falling the day before the second leg of Chelsea’s Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid.
There are thought to be four bidders remaining in the race for Chelsea, with a cluster of American sports billionaires involved. Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca joined the shortlist on Friday 25th March. The 67-year-old billionaire and co-chairman of Bain Capital will rival the bid of Chicago Cubs owners the Ricketts family, former Liverpool chairman Sir Martin Broughton and LA Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly.
Sky News reported that any potential new owner will be told by Raine that they must commit at least £1bn to future investment in the club if they are to succeed in the battle to end Mr Abramovich’s two-decade tenure. The additional funding will be made available for the redevelopment of the Stamford Bridge stadium, improvement of the playing squad and other areas of development.
This will be welcome news for Chelsea supporters who will be reassured by the promise of the investment they have become accustomed to under Roman Abramovich. All four of the remaining bidders have significant experience in sports stadium infrastructure, a key consideration given Chelsea’s long-standing plans to expand Stamford Bridge.
The Chelsea FC auction continues to move at speed, with executives at other major investment banks suggesting that such a complex sale would typically have taken at least six months. The rival consortiums now have two weeks to reconsider the structure of their bids before Raine make their final judgement on the best offer. The 11th April date will trigger the successful buyer’s next move – to seek UK government approval.
