CHELSEA BEAUTY PARADE
As bidders line up, favourite Boehly has the cash and promises for fans
AT 5pm Eastern Standard Time in New York on Friday, Colin Neville, the head of sport at Raine Group, refreshed his emails and somewhere among his inbox was a proposal from the new owner of Chelsea.
Neville is the man entrusted by Roman Abramovich to sell his most high-profile asset and 5pm New York time was the deadline for all bids to be submitted.
There has been a frenzy of speculation since Abramovich announced his intention to sell the club, intensifying when the Russian was sanctioned for his close links to Vladimir Putin.
Amid several tyre kickers and the occasional genuine billionaire, it’s been hard for fans to discern wheat from chaff. The best moment in the bidders’ beauty parade undoubtedly came from the Turkish businessman Muhsin Bayrak, who having initially announced he would be flying the ‘Turkish flag in London soon’, then said he had the wrong email address and so had sadly missed the deadline.
It’s the job of Yale-educated Neville to whittle down the list of wannabes this week to two or three serious contenders from his office on East 55th Street, Manhattan.
While Martin Broughton, the former British Airways and British American Tobacco chairman, has teamed up with Chelsea fan and World Athletics president Seb Coe to lead a bid that appears strong on paper, they have yet to reveal who their financial backers are.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Josh Harris and David Blitzer, both of whom have an 18 per cent stake in Crystal Palace and who are own the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, are two of Broughton’s partners, which he says is a consortium made up of investors from four or five continents.
Harris and Blitzer would have to sell their stakes in Palace and given the need of the UK Government for a quick, clean sale before Chelsea run out of cash, two bids stand out as most likely to make the cut:
The Boehly Bid
TODD BOEHLY, who along with Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss and London property developer Jonathan Goldstein, is emerging as the favourite to take over Chelsea, insists that he will put fans at the heart of the club and that he will emulate Liverpool’s use of data to enhance Chelsea’s transfer dealing.
Boehly’s team seems a long way down the track to reassuring the UK Government that they can do a quick, uncomplicated deal, which will appeal to fans.
Firstly, the finance isn’t in doubt: Boehly’s investment company Eldridge oversees $40billion in assets; Wyss is a medical device manufacturer worth $5bn in personal wealth; and they have enlisted Iranian-born US citizen Behdad Eghbali at Clearlake Capital Group, which manages assets worth $60bn.
Secondly, they have been astute and quick to pander to the current political mood in the UK by including Daniel Finkelstein, Times columnist and former adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, alongside Barbara Charone, a legendary PR music executive who was behind the rise of Madonna among others.
Both are Chelsea season-ticket holders, Charone since the 1970s and Lord Finkelstein, ennobled in 2013, since 2002, though he too has been going to Chelsea since the 1970s. They will be non-executive directors on the board.
Finkelstein sat on Tracey Crouch’s fan-led review and is expected to ensure that the bid ticks all the boxes recommended by her report. The bid is already in touch with the Chelsea Pitch Owners and will look to enhance their role, possibly as golden shareholders in the club, with right of veto over key decisions beyond the stadium and pitch. A fans’ advisory board, as recommended by Crouch, is being put together. Sources say they would never revive the European Super League proposals, which they understand are an anathema to European fans. They fully accept the jeopardy of meritocracy — a point of difference from North America’s closed system of no relegation.
They are expected to redevelop the stadium, though hope to do so gradually, ensuring that Chelsea don’t need to move away from Stamford Bridge for long periods.
Finkelstein will also bring football credibility to the job. He was one of the pioneers in championing data as a football tool in his column The Fink Tank, which started in 2002. One of the first statisticians he hired was physicist Ian Graham, now Liverpool’s director of research and the man credited, along with Liverpool technical director Michael Edwards, for the recruitment which has transformed Liverpool into Champions League and Premier League winners. Graham was also key to the recruitment of Jurgen Klopp.
Boehly is likely to be the public face of the bid. He was part of the consortium that rescued the LA Dodgers baseball team from a financial crisis in 2012.
He was instrumental in selling the LA Dodgers’ TV rights over 25 years for $8.3bn to Time Warner. That allowed his group to invest in the team, culminating in their 2020 World Series win, the Dodgers’ first for 32 years.
Magic Johnson, the former LA Lakers basketball star, was part of the consortium which took over the Dodgers and Boehly said: ‘He [Johnson] just pounded in on us, saying: ‘You have to win — if we’re in Los Angeles, you have to win.’
While no owners will adopt the Abramovich approach of burning money to buy success, Boehly will appreciate the need for box-office recruitment, citing how they revitalised the Dodgers with a string of A-list signings in 2012.
The Ricketts Family
The Ricketts, owners of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, confirmed last week they would be bidding, and delivered ‘a comprehensive offering’ shortly before 8pm UK time on Friday, more than an hour before deadline.
Tom Ricketts, 56, chairman of the Cubs, fronts the bid, co-financed by Ken Griffin, 53, who runs a Chicago-based hedge fund, Citadel, and has a fortune of around £20bn.
The Ricketts are prepared to spend several billion pounds on both the purchase of the club and a £1bn-plus redevelopment of Stamford Bridge. ‘Their bid didn’t merely include a figure [for the purchase price] but considerations of what will be required for on-field success, the [redevelopment] of the ground and the stadium experience for fans,’ said a source.
The Ricketts family bought the Cubs in 2009 for £680m and, following a £760m renovation of the team’s Wrigley Field Stadium, it is now worth around £2.4bn. While some Cubs fans have complained the Ricketts haven’t consistently invested in the team, the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, their first title in 108 years.
Tom Ricketts and his three siblings — Pete, 57, Laura, 54, and Todd, 52, comprise the Cubs’ board of directors. Their father, Joe, 80, who built the family fortune via his TD Ameritrade brokerage firm, brought shame on the family in 2012 by referring to Muslims as ‘the enemy’. His children distanced themselves from the comments and have been building bridges with Chicago’s Muslim community.
While Tom will lead at Chelsea if successful, Laura and Todd will also take an interest. Pete’s day job, as Republican governor of Nebraska, will limit his involvement.
Tom Ricketts has some prior experience of ownership in English football — he had a small personal investment in a consortium of Americans who controlled Derby County from 2009 to 2015, when the Rams were sold to Mel Morris.
Ricketts has also bid for Chelsea previously, in 2018, as Abramovich began to run into visa issues with the British Government. Abramovich did not want to sell. ‘The family have therefore already been through an extensive due diligence process before,’ said a source.
Abramovich had planning permission to turn Stamford Bridge from a 41,837-seat arena into a 60,000-seat venue, although that permission expired in 2021. ‘The Ricketts bid have spoken to the architect involved, as well as to project director David Hickey,’ a source said.
‘To a greater extent than any other bidders, they are fully cognisant of what’s required at the stadium.’