Chelsea FC Newscorner

[Danilo Kunhar]

GianfrancoZola schrieb vor 3 Stunden:

Der einzige Grund fuer dieses Statement ist um dem Government einen Tritt in den Allerwertesten zu geben

Nicht gelungen würde ich sagen. 
 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12566967/roman-abramovich-sanctioned-by-eu-as-chelsea-withdraw-request-to-play-fa-cup-game-at-middlesbrough-behind-closed-doors

bearbeitet 15. März 2022 von TIA

[GianfrancoZola]

1 hour ago, TIA said:

Nicht gelungen würde ich sagen. 
 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12566967/roman-abramovich-sanctioned-by-eu-as-chelsea-withdraw-request-to-play-fa-cup-game-at-middlesbrough-behind-closed-doors

wennst den ganzen Artikel liest, mein ich mal schon. Das sich fuer das Boro Spiel nichts aendert, vor allem weil die Ticketverkaufsdeadline heute war, war eh klar das war wie gesagt nicht der indent von der Aktion. Aber das Government weiss das sie sich schoen langsam dran gewoehnen muessen das ein Profiklub ein 24/7 job ist. 

[GianfrancoZola]

schon wieder die Bayern im Finale. naja, werd ma auch schaffen. #titelverteidigung2022

[GianfrancoZola]

 

 

Heute vor 6 Jahren. schoen wars

[Maulinho]

Oscar hätte ich auch schon wieder vergessen gehabt, der ist seit über 5 Jahren in China und immer noch erst 30.

Hat nach dem Wechsel dorthin auch kein Spiel mehr für Brasilien gemacht.

[GianfrancoZola]

5 hours ago, Maulinho said:

Oscar hätte ich auch schon wieder vergessen gehabt, der ist seit über 5 Jahren in China und immer noch erst 30.

Hat nach dem Wechsel dorthin auch kein Spiel mehr für Brasilien gemacht.

ja ewig schad um ihn. war ein super netter typ und ein guter kicker, aber soweit ich mich erinnern kann kam er aus extrem armen Verhaeltnissen und scheinbar das Geld wichtiger als alles andere. 

[GianfrancoZola]

gute Analyse des status quo - https://www.ft.com/content/85584dae-10db-44dd-a922-e94047ce8606

Two bids backed by US billionaires have become the frontrunners to win the £3bn race to purchase Chelsea football club, which is rushing to replace its Russian oligarch owner Roman Abramovich who has been hit with sanctions. The preferred bids are from an investor group led by Todd Boehly, the financier and owner of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers, and another led by Josh Harris and David Blitzer, the private equity billionaires who own sport teams including basketball’s Philadelphia 76ers, according to people with knowledge of the matter. On Thursday, other bidders including Saudi Media Group were informed that they had been eliminated from the process, they said. The unique circumstances of Chelsea’s sale have garnered strong interest for what is seen as a rare trophy asset in football’s most lucrative domestic division, the Premier League. The auction process for the club based in west London, England, is being managed by US merchant bank Raine Group. Bids are being assessed based on a complicated set of criteria, including how much of the offer will be delivered to charity and how much funding will be available to invest in Chelsea and its stadium, those with knowledge of the matter said. The record of bidders in managing high-profile assets is also being assessed. The frontrunners in the contest sought to distinguish their offers not only in terms of price but also by collaborating with members of the British establishment. Boehly’s group has the backing of Daniel Finkelstein, a Conservative party peer and columnist for The Times newspaper in London, while Harris and Blitzer turned to City grandee Sir Martin Broughton and Sebastian Coe, World Athletics president. California-based investment firm Clearlake Capital, which has more than $60bn in assets under management, is providing financial backing for Boehly’s bid. The Boehly group also has support from Goldman Sachs.  The bid from Saudi Media Group was not competitive and relied heavily on debt financing, an unattractive prospect for the club, one person with knowledge of the situation said. Bids from British property developer Nick Candy, who was working on a behalf of an investor consortium, and London-based investment manager Centricus are also not expected to progress. An offer from the Ricketts family, which owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team, was weakened by renewed scrutiny of leaked correspondence in which the family’s patriarch wrote that Muslims are the “enemy”. The Ricketts bid has financial backing from US hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin. The Ricketts family has stressed that “racism and Islamophobia have no place whatsoever in our society” after Chelsea fans criticised Joe Ricketts, founder of brokerage TD Ameritrade, for the comments in the leaked emails. Chelsea has won every major honour in football under Roman Abramovich © AP The level of interest in Chelsea underlines the growth of the Premier League, Europe’s top football division by revenue and global reach, in America, where the value of its broadcast rights soared in the latest tender. Chelsea has won every major honour in football under Abramovich, who bought the club in 2003 and broke Manchester United’s domestic dominance by spending millions on buying star players and paying their multimillion-pound salaries. The club won last season’s Uefa Champions League, the most prestigious club tournament in Europe, and the Fifa club world cup. Abramovich is selling the club as a result of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has forced the sport industry to confront its ties with Russia and oligarchs accused of being close to the Kremlin. However, the UK’s decision to sanction Abramovich and freeze his assets has added complexity to the sale, which will require special approval from the UK government. Ministers are adamant that Abramovich, who has pledged to donate the net proceeds of any sale to charity, must not benefit from the transaction. He has also said that he plans to forgive the £1.5bn debt owed to him by Fordstam, the entity through which he owns Chelsea. Chelsea’s revenue totalled £434mn in the year ended June 2021, up from £407mn a year earlier, bolstered by winning the Champions League. Despite sanctions, Chelsea is able to play matches because of a licence granted to the club to prevent wider disruption to the Premier League, one of the UK’s biggest cultural exports. The government amended Chelsea’s licence on Wednesday to allow Abramovich’s Fordstam entity to inject up to £30mn into the club to “resolve any cash flow or liquidity issues”. If their bid group is successful, Harris and Blitzer will probably be forced to sell their minority shareholding in Crystal Palace, a rival Premier League club which is based in south London.

 

[GianfrancoZola]

The Athletic bringt detailierte profile der 4 Bidders die noch im Rennen sind. Hier das erste ueber die Ricketts bid.

 

The Chelsea bidders: The Ricketts family and Ken Griffin – proven, ready but unpopular

There are four bids shortlisted to take over Chelsea from Roman Abramovich, led by Todd Boehly, David Blitzer and Josh Harris, the Ricketts family and Ken Griffin, and Stephen Pagliuca.
 

The Raine Group, the New York-based bank running the selling process, is aiming to complete their section of the deal by the end of April, at which stage they will take their preferred bidder to the government and Premier League.

The Athletic will profile the four bidders, starting with the Ricketts family and Griffin…


 

 

If the race to buy Chelsea really has entered the beauty parade part of the process, there is no argument about which of the four finalists needs a makeover.

On the face of it, the bid led by the Ricketts family ticks every box: they are rich, they are backed by somebody in Ken Griffin who is even richer, they have experience of running a big sports team from a major city, they have developed that team’s historic home and created an entertainment district adjacent to the stadium, and they have enjoyed sporting success.

The bid’s frontman is Tom Ricketts, the 55-year-old chairman of the Chicago Cubs, one of Major League Baseball’s oldest and most famous teams, but he is joined on the ticket by his brother, Todd, and Laura, his sister.

Tom has run the Cubs for the family since they bought the team (in a contested auction) in 2009, and his siblings have all held positions on the board. Tom is also the chairman and co-founder of Incapital, an investment firm that specialises in corporate bonds, and he was a member of the American consortium that owned Derby County between 2008 and 2015.

Pete Ricketts is the governor of Nebraska — the family’s home state — and youngest brother Todd is another prominent Republican, as he is the finance chairman of the party’s national committee. The family Democrat is Laura, a lawyer and campaigner for women’s rights and LGBT issues.

So, it is easy to see why some observers of this most unusual takeover tale, including sources close to rival bids, believe Raine wants to sell Chelsea to the Ricketts and their backer Griffin. The rationale is that they are proven, ready and well-connected.

Unfortunately, they are also the only bidding group that a large section of Chelsea’s fanbase has actively campaigned against. If this was a popularity contest, the Ricketts would not have got any further than the public auditions.

They are in this hole because of some ugly comments made by Joe Ricketts, their father, in a cache of private emails. They were sent between 2009 and 2014 but not leaked until 2019, when the left-leaning news and opinion website Splinter published them in a story titled: Here Are The Racist Conspiracy Emails Rotting Right-Wing Billionaire Joe Ricketts’ Brain.

Joe, now 80, elevated his family into the sports franchise-ownership classes by co-founding a stockbroking business in Nebraska in 1975. Twenty years and a couple of acquisitions later, it had become the first company to offer retail investors an electronic trading platform. Two years after that, it floated, making Ricketts and his original partners very wealthy men.

In 2011, aged 70, he stood down from the board. By this point, Ameritrade had bought Toronto-Dominion Bank’s US brokerage arm and rebranded as TD Ameritrade. The company has subsequently been bought by American financial services giant Charles Schwab Corporation and remains a major player in its field.

Retirement gave Joe more time to pursue his passion for American history, philanthropy and funding politicians who agree with his vision for low taxes, small government and traditional American values.

If Joe had left it at that, we would now be moving on briskly to a discussion about how the Cubs broke their 108-year World Series drought in 2016, why they have not won another one since and whether they can turn Chelsea Village into a place families might want to spend some time and money, as opposed to being a very average hotel tacked onto a football stadium.

But Joe did not leave it there.

In the emails published by Splinter, Joe Ricketts wrote, “Islam is a cult and not a religion”, “Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy” and “we cannot ever let Islam become a large part of our society”. He also shared conspiracy theories about former US president Barack Obama and passed on several “joke” emails based on racial slurs.

Once published, Tom Ricketts issued a statement to distance himself, his siblings and the Cubs from his father’s “racially insensitive” comments.

“Let me be clear: the language and views expressed in those emails have no place in our society,” said Tom Ricketts, who also pointed out that Joe was not involved in day-to-day operations at the club.

“These emails do not reflect the culture we’ve worked so hard to build at the Chicago Cubs since 2009,” he added.

Joe Ricketts also published a short statement on his personal website.

“I deeply regret and apologise for some of the exchanges I had in my emails,” he wrote. “Sometimes I received emails that I should have condemned. Other times I’ve said things that don’t reflect my value system. I strongly believe that bigoted ideas are wrong.”

The condemnation of these remarks was rapid and widespread, with senior Democrats in the Chicago area, whose opponents had sometimes been funded by Joe Ricketts, leading the charge.

But then… not much, really. The Cubs worked hard to repair relations with the Muslim community in the city, Joe kept his head down on his ranch in Wyoming and the storm passed.

It seemed that most sports fans in the city decided Tom and his siblings were not responsible for their father’s views and should be judged on more traditional measures such as the price of tickets at Wrigley Field (on the high side) and why the Cubs’ best players kept leaving for other teams.

Normal, typical, everyday stuff for billionaire owners of sports teams to deal with or ignore, as they see fit.

That probably explains why the Ricketts family were so spectacularly blindsided by the reaction to Joe Ricketts’ emails from Chelsea fans. And why they have, so far, been completely unable to get past it.

Despite their rivals for Chelsea all having their own issues to tackle, only one bid has provoked a trending hashtag on Twitter — and #NoToRicketts is not a vote of confidence.

An initial attempt to address the concerns of Chelsea fans has arguably made things even worse. Last week, the Chelsea Supporters Trust (CST) stated it had met representatives from the bid in London and was grateful for the opportunity to do so.

“However, our concerns about their ability to run an inclusive, successful club on behalf of our diverse supporter base around the world have not yet been allayed,” the trust said.

“It is for the Ricketts family to demonstrate how they will address supporter concerns — especially concerning inclusivity, given both past and recent statements by members of the family, and they have not yet done that.

“They must do so publicly and they must do so urgently. If they are unable to do this and gain the confidence of Chelsea supporters, the CST board does not believe it would be in the best interests of our members and Chelsea supporters for their bid to succeed.”

This forced an immediate response from Tom Ricketts, who said although he and his family were very grateful to the fans who had come to listen to them, it was obvious there was more work to be done.

“It is now up to us to redouble our efforts and lay out a vision for our stewardship of the club with diversity and inclusion at its heart,” Tom Ricketts added.

If they fail, the Ricketts can forget about ever running a club that employs N’Golo Kante, Antonio Rudiger and Hakim Ziyech, just three of the Muslim members of staff at Stamford Bridge, or one that has so many Muslim fans around the world.

In fact, they can probably forget about ever running any English football club, as their father’s comments are now by far the most famous thing about the family on this side of the Atlantic. And this would be a significant blow for Tom Ricketts, in particular, as one of the reasons his bid looked so good a few weeks ago is that he has been trying to buy a football team for several years. He had already looked at Chelsea, thereby reducing the amount of due diligence needed now when time is so short.

Due diligence, of course, should be a two-way street. It is therefore a shame that nobody pointed out that English football fans — particularly ones upset about the idea of swapping arguably the most generous benefactor in football history for Americans who will expect a return on their investment — can be very hard to win over once they have made their minds up about something.

---

If the Ricketts family are the divisive face of this Chelsea bid, Ken Griffin represents the formidably deep pair of pockets.

Griffin, 53, is the founder and CEO of Citadel LLC, one of the biggest financial service companies in the world. It consists of two main businesses: the Citadel hedge fund — which he started soon after graduating from Harvard with a degree in economics in 1990 and now manages approximately $39 billion (£30 billion) in assets — and Citadel Securities, one of Wall Street’s biggest market-making firms that accounts for 40 per cent of all shares traded by individual investors in the United States.

Both are majority-owned by Griffin, who is estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of $28.4 (£21.7) billion. For some billionaire context, that number is more than three times the estimated net worth of Roman Abramovich and almost twice that of Jim Ratcliffe, the Monaco-based British industrialist who bought Ligue 1 club Nice in August 2019 after mounting a prolonged, public bid to acquire Chelsea.

In many ways, Griffin stands as the archetype of the successful American capitalist. As a university student, he put a satellite dish on the roof of his building so he could inform his earliest trades with real-time stock quotes. Soon after moving to Chicago, he began building Citadel from an upstart investment firm that targeted distressed assets into a company that now employs 1,150 people at its 37-storey headquarters, 1,000 more in New York and has 16 offices worldwide.

“Business is business,” Griffin told The Wall Street Journal in 2015. “I don’t manufacture cars, but we do manufacture money.”

Underpinning the rise of Citadel has been Griffin’s burning desire to win, his intolerance of failure and, above all, his ruthless pursuit of profit that has taken the company down some unsavoury paths.

In 2005, as the south-east United States reeled from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Citadel saw an opportunity for returns in the realm of catastrophe reinsurance — the business of insuring insurers hit hard by the disaster — and founded a Bermuda-based reinsurer called New Castle Re to tap into expected price rises. This move, part of a broader shift from hedge funds and private equity firms, paid dividends as insurance premiums increased by 100 to 200 per cent for the Gulf Coast. 

 

Two years later, Citadel provided $110 million (£84 million) in convertible loans to China Security and Surveillance Technology. The company, which used the money to acquire 10 of the 50 biggest surveillance companies in China, has been accused of providing much of the surveillance infrastructure for the ruling Chinese Communist Party, including technology used to alert police of possible unsanctioned protests and monitoring of internet cafes to track down democracy advocates and dissidents. Citadel declined to comment when the New York Times reported the loans.

The financial crash of 2008 put Citadel in dire straits. Its hedge fund lost 55 per cent of its assets, forcing Griffin to restrict investor withdrawals to prevent the company’s collapse. Once the initial storm had been weathered, he responded by moving to scoop up the best traders jettisoned by banks adjusting to a more regulated environment.

Traders are given significant autonomy at Citadel but are also held relentlessly accountable, and Griffin sets a Darwinian tone for the culture. “If you do well you’re rewarded, and if you don’t, you’re fired,” Jack Woodruff, a trader who left the company to set up his own hedge fund, told the Financial Times last year. “It’s not a political place at all. It is capitalism in its purest form.”

Others have been less generous in their assessment. In an email sent to Griffin in 2005, rival hedge fund manager Dan Loeb likened Citadel to a “gulag” (a system of forced labour camps in the Soviet Union) and added: “You are surrounded by sycophants, but even you must know that the people who work for you despise and resent you. I assume you know this because I have read the employment agreements that you make people sign.”

Asked about Citadel’s culture in an interview with Bloomberg’s business channel in 2017, Griffin made a topical comparison: “It’s, in some sense, like a professional sports team, and if you’re no longer on your game we don’t have room for you on that team,” he explained.

Citadel now places wagers on markets rising and falling worldwide to limit the risk of catastrophic losses, and the expansion into trading securities for others has helped power a spectacular recovery — but one that has also made the company and Griffin himself magnets for controversy.

Griffin’s public criticism of the wave of gun crime in Chicago in recent years jars with the fact that Citadel has invested millions in Storm Ruger & Co and Smith & Wesson Brands Inc, two of the leading manufacturers of guns seized by Chicago Police, as well as every major manufacturer of ammunition in the US. Citadel also invests in GEO Group and CoreCivic, private prison operators that run immigration detention centres, despite other US financial institutions cutting ties with both.

When questioned about these investments by WBEZ last month, a Citadel spokesperson said Griffin doesn’t have a role in the company’s stock choices, adding that the investments make up less than 0.01 per cent of the company’s portfolio and therefore that linking them with violent crime in Chicago is “quite a stretch”.

The global pandemic shutdown was a lucrative period for Citadel and Griffin’s net worth grew by $5 billion (£3.8 billion). He personally funded the US State Department’s rescue of hundreds of US citizens from Wuhan, China in January 2020 and donated $45 million (£34 million) to community initiatives. But Citadel also made millions by shorting the stocks of European airlines, cinema chains and UK supermarkets Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.

Citadel also significantly increased its investment in pharmaceutical companies Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and NovaVax in the weeks before then-president Donald Trump announced Operation Warp Speed, pledging $10 billion (£7.6 billion) of government funds to COVID-19 vaccine development.

Early last year, Griffin was summoned before Congress, where he denied accusations of a conflict of interest between Citadel’s hedge fund and securities trading operation in the GameStop trading scandal. Shares in GameStop plunged by as much as 55 per cent in January 2021 after trading platforms curbed the purchase of them and major hedge funds had bet billions of dollars the shares would fall.

 

But that was far from the most damaging brush with authority in recent times. Citadel has been fined 60 times by various US regulatory agencies with total fines adding up to more than $31 million (£23.7 million). This includes a fine of $22.6 million (£17.2 million) from the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) to settle charges that the company hurt retail investors by not providing the best price when executing millions of trades between 2007 and 2010. Citadel Securities agreed to pay without admitting or denying the findings.

In February 2020, Citadel agreed to pay $97 million (£74 million) to resolve “alleged trading rule violations” in the Chinese stock market that had resulted in a company trading account being suspended for five years. A spokesperson for Citadel Securities said it had “worked closely with the CSRC (China Security Regulatory Commission) through the reconciliation process”, adding that resolving the matter was important to the company “as China continues to expand opportunities for foreign participation in its financial markets.”

Griffin’s status as the richest man in Illinois would have been enough to bring him to the attention of the Ricketts, but he has also emerged as a Republican Party megadonor in recent years, pledging $65 million (£49 million) to causes in the 2020 elections. The surprise in their partnership to bid for Chelsea is that until now he has shown relatively little public interest in sport, despite lavish spending on other hobbies: his art collection is valued at around £1 billion and in January 2019, he paid £95 million for a mansion near Buckingham Palace.

His broader approach to investment suggests he — for this is very much a private Griffin venture, not a Citadel one — may be relying on the Ricketts’ sports owner credentials with the Chicago Cubs as he prepares to enter the unfamiliar business of European football.

“What I find works well over time is having a deep expertise in the area in which you’re participating,” he told Bloomberg in 2017. “The core belief we have is that deep expertise is rewarded, so we organise our affairs where people specialise… it’s that deep specialisation that we think drives differentiated and superior returns.”

Despite his staggering wealth, everything in his professional history indicates Griffin will only spend on Chelsea what he believes he will get back in the long run.

[GianfrancoZola]

Next up, Todd Boehly and co…

“When I was growing up it was (about playing computer games) Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. I certainly didn’t know about Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham. I didn’t know about these clubs. Kids these days are fully aware of what’s the best and the Premier Leagueis the best.”

Meet Todd Boehly, head of one of four consortiums hoping to succeed Roman Abramovich as the owner of Chelsea. The American has been regarded as the favourite from the outset and is viewed by rivals in the process as the one to beat.

He is not doing this alone. Other names on the ticket are Swiss multi-billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, property developer Jonathan Goldstein and investment firm Clearlake Capital. Chelsea fans Daniel Finkelstein and Barbara Charone are involved too. More about all of them later but as multiple sources insist: “This is Todd Boehly’s bid.”

Buying a Premier League club is not something the 46-year-old has only just begun to consider in light of the sanctions the UK government has imposed on Abramovich. Boehly had a £2.2 billion offer rejected for Chelsea in 2019, the same year he spoke to Bloomberg about his ambitions to get involved in the sport.

Boehly is very much the face of his consortium’s bid to buy Chelsea (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

The businessman set up Eldridge Industries seven years ago, a holding company that owns stakes in about 80 different finance, media, sports, real estate and tech companies. Among his portfolio is a percentage in global franchises the LA Dodgers and the LA Lakers, serial winners in baseball and basketball.

With those on the shortlist primarily coming from across the Atlantic,there is some concern among the Chelsea fanbase. The Glazers running of Manchester United, as well as Stan Kroenke’s troubles at London rivals Arsenal, has meant the prospect of Chelsea ending up in American’s hands is not being celebrated universally.

But Boehly’s conversation with Bloomberg in September 2019 might help ease some of those fears, especially as this was not part of a PR pitch to win over cynical Chelsea supporters. The club had consistently made it clear that Abramovich wasn’t interested in selling to anyone at the time so Boehly had little to gain by saying anything he didn’t mean, although his opinions coming to light now will surely help his cause.

“Football is the biggest sport in the world,” Boehly insisted. “I can’t believe American football can get to use the word ‘football’ because to me that word should be football. The fact is it is still the best product in the world. It’s 90 minutes so it has a great timeline. The passion that the fans have for the activity and the sport and the teams is unparalleled. So when you start to think about what you’re trying to build with these teams is, you’re really trying to A, win and B, be part of the community.”

Boehly’s rise to prominence has been pretty remarkable too. He’s admitted to not being the best student at William & Mary, the second-oldest university in the US after Harvard, and wasn’t sure how to get into finance. Advice from his former geometry teacher at Landon School in Maryland, Steve Sorkin, led him to apply for an internship in the UK, which provided the opportunity to work at Citibank in London while also studying at the London School of Economics. This kick-started his career, so no wonder he has a bit of a love affair with Englandand its capital.

It was at Landon School that he displayed another form of a competitive edge. He was on the wrestling team that won state tournament titles in 1990 and 1991 and the facilities there now carry his name.

He got his first full-time job at CS First Boston in New York, now known as Credit Suisse, in 1996 and things went rapidly from there. As he told Yahoo Finance last year: “I lived with a simple mantra. If I said I was going to do it I’d get it done. And when you have a reputation for being able to get stuff done it’s amazing what more stuff ends up, piling up in your inbox.”

His next move was to JH Whitney & Co, an old-school venture capital business. He learns a lot about valuing businesses and using debt. This led to a switch to  Guggenheim Partners in 2001. Later that year he spotted that Enron, the American energy company, was about to go bust and told investors to get out.

By the time he left to set up Eldridge in 2015, he was a co-owner in the LA Dodgers, bought by a consortium he was involved in called Guggenheim Baseball Management for $2.15 billion (£1.64 billion) a decade ago. What will encourage those of a Chelsea persuasion is the success the Dodgers have enjoyed since his involvement, winning eight division titles, three National League pennants and the World Series in 2020.

Boehly doesn’t run the Dodgers by himself but the way he operates gives a clue to how he could do things at Chelsea.

Talking to Yahoo Finance last year, he said: “You always just have to keep remembering that the fans are the centre. And the second that you kind of veer, just go back to think about the fans.

Boehly (right) and the Dodgers’ new ownership group in 2012 (Photo: Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

“I think we’ve got a great team now… like any business, you have to have the people that are in the business run the business and really feel like they own the outcome. Let them run.”

In many ways, that doesn’t sound too different to how Abramovich has operated. Director Marina Granovskaia effectively runs the football side of Chelsea, with technical and performance advisor Petr Cechproviding support since taking up a role in 2019. Chief executive Guy Laurence is in charge of the commercial and marketing side.

But Boehly would not be as carefree with spending as Abramovich. Chelsea have accumulated £1.5 billion of debtunder his ownership, although the Russian has made it clear he doesn’t want the sum repaid.

Sources talk about the consortium running Chelsea similarly to how Fenway Sports Group operates at Liverpool. FSG still makes major transfers, but works far more within the club’s means.

Boehly is not trying to buy the club to take it backwards, though. He remains very ambitious and wants to invest in the squad.

One contact talks about his desire to compete with Real Madrid. The La Liga side may not be what they were in the transfer market but are still regarded as one of the biggest clubs in the world.

People talk of a very data-driven man, someone who believes in the analytics of a player. While it is not new in football, the suggestion is Chelsea will not necessarily be chasing the most expensive names but looking for the right fit. It’s not what you spend but how you spend it.

The need to generate more revenue is high on the agenda. It is believed Boehly is encouraged by the increased funds that foreign media rights could bring. He also believes there is still a huge market in the USA that Chelsea have not made the most of yet. Improving the stadium,which seems to be a major factor in the sale, is regarded as another money maker.

Plans have already started to be worked on. The Sunday Times reported that architects Jane Marie Smith and David Hickey, who is the former project director for Abramovich’s now-cancelled 60,000-seat redevelopment, are being consulted. Another clue to what he might want to do with Stamford Bridge, and the surrounding area, comes in his 2019 Bloomberg interview.

“The new stadiums that English clubs are building, they’re starting to take an American approach to stadiums and making them environments,” he said. “They were very utilitarian historically but now they’re starting to think of them as ‘lifestyle’.

“Originally stadiums would be a place where you would go and then leave, just watch an event. Now they’re starting to think about entertaining you earlier and keeping you longer. That works on lots of levels — it drives the experience, the economics and it also takes away from the congestion of arrival and departure.”

Those who have met Boehly regard him as intelligent but also restrained, rational and astute. Take, for instance, the first tech investment Eldridge made, in a company called Replay Technologies. It involved putting nine cameras around the home plate in Dodgers Stadium to give viewers a 360-degree replay. Boehly’s company later sold that to Intel and it’s now used by all the US sports in their broadcasts.

Given the costs involved in owning a club at the highest level, let alone Chelsea’s issues with maintaining a healthy bank balance, one might wonder why Boehly — who says Eldridge made over $1 billion in 2020 — sees a Premier League club as a good investment.

The asking price is expected to reach up to £3 billion but he has a good idea of what he would be taking on having done a lot of the required due diligence three years ago. When asked by Bloomberg about the huge cost of taking on a football side in 2019, he said: “It is hard to buy quality and also not have to pay up. Then it’s a question of can you continue to build on what you’ve acquired at that price? I continue to believe that there is a global opportunity for the best ones.”

Boehly, though, can’t do this deal on his own.

Wyss is another wealthy benefactor with a personal fortune estimated by Forbes to be £3.8 billion. His most famous part of the saga so far is being the first to reveal Abramovich was looking to sell the club. His interview with Swiss newspaper Blick came before Abramovich’s statement was released on the club’s official website.

The 86-year-old made his money in a medical device company, which he would go on to sell, called Synthes. But it doesn’t sound like he will have much involvement with Boehly’s bid.

Wyss is described by sources as a “partner” along with Goldstein, but it is the latter who will have a greater input. As one describes it, Goldstein is “the second person in this consortium”.

Wyss (left) pictured in 2015 and Goldstein in 2019 (Photos: Getty Images)

Goldstein’s name has certainly rung alarm bells among the Chelsea fanbase because he is a Tottenham supporter. He also co-founded real estate investment firm Cain International, which looked into buying Spurs in 2014.

But Cain’s biggest investor happens to be Boehly’s Eldridge firm so it is more understandable why he is on board. The fact he is a passionate football fan, even though it is of a rival team, matters to Boehly because he knows the game and he knows the players. He also lives in north-west London so would be in a better position to keep an eye on things than Boehly or Wyss, who both live in the US.

Perhaps just as importantly, Goldstein knows how Boehly likes to operate. Quoted in the Sunday Times last weekend, it is clear he does not see his personal affiliation to a club in the north of the capital as a stumbling block. He described the chance to buy Chelsea as a “generational opportunity”.

Goldstein was chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council between 2017 and 2021 and got to know Lord Daniel Finkelstein, who has been approached to become a non-executive director at Chelsea. He is already a committed Chelsea supporter so there is someone to speak up on fan issues. For example, unlike 12 months ago, there would be someone to rally against the concept of joining a breakaway Super League.

Finkelstein also has political connections as a member of the Conservative Party, which he represents in the House of Lords. He sat on the panel for the government’s fan-led review into football.

Finkelstein, pictured in June 2017, is a Chelsea fan (Photo: Arthur Edwards – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Like Boehly, he has a love of statistics and has written a highly-respected column in The Times newspaper since 2002 on football data called The Fink Tank. One can safely assume he would make sure statistical analysis is state-of-the-art at Stamford Bridge. It is understood Boehly appreciates his work in this department and that it marries up with the rest of the consortium’s own ideas on recruitment and investment.

Charone is also included because of her love for Chelsea. She is from Chicago but people that know her talk about an individual who is one of the most passionate Chelsea fans you will ever meet.

She has been going to games since the 1970s when she was writing a book about the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards. He lived very close to Stamford Bridge, so she just ended up going.

Now she pays several thousand pounds to attend as a VIP in the Canalettos Suite in the East Stand, where she is regularly spotted with others who have made their name in the music business. Her involvement is another indication of how Boehly wants fans represented.

Charone pictured in October 1975 (Photo: Michael Putland/Getty Images)

The addition of Clearlake Capital, which is thought to manage assets worth around £45 billion, to the team is seen as very significant. They now feel confident that the size of the wealth behind them runs at least as deep as any other bid. It also means they have the cash to complete the transaction quickly and satisfy Chelsea’s demands to have £1 billion available to invest in the club.

They will be hard to turn down. No one can doubt Boehly’s ambition. When asked by Yahoo Finance why he invests in sports, he replied: “Because it is intellectually stimulating. There are no guarantees.

“I like the ones who have significant momentum already behind them. That’s my preference. They are more expensive but they are generally of better value.

“So the fact that the Lakers have 17 world titles and you walk into their facility and they have them all — it is awesome — over the court reminding everyone why they’re there. The Dodgers have seven and hopefully growing. Those two brands mean more than just baseball and basketball. They mean showtime.”

Chelsea won every major trophy under Abramovich. Boehly feels he can help them continue to do the same.

[GianfrancoZola]

oida das war gar nix. Anstatt das Real vom Classico waren die leider wieder gut, und anstatt das normale Chelsea, gabs wieder das von der 2. haelfte gg Brentford. Quer durchs Team (Havertz ausgenommen) absolut nicht zum anschauen. Aus ist's zwar noch nicht, aber da muss sich sehr viel aendern.

[GianfrancoZola]

30 Minuten gespielt, Werner mittlerweile beide posts und den bar getroffen, trotzdem 4-0 vorne dank Alonso, Werner, Havertz und Mount. passt

[Scr-cfc92]

Benzema hat halt den Unterschied gemacht. Wäre super, wenn Chelsea auch mal wieder einen eiskalten Torjäger hätte. Nach Drogba war eigentlich nur noch Diego Costa ein halbwegs effizienter Stürmer. 

[menasche]

schade, das hat chelsea verloren. eigentlich eine klare sache über beide spiele hinweg, aber unnötige unachtsamkeiten in der defensive, gepaart mit den überlebenskünsten von real madrid rund um einen eiskalten bezema ergeben dann halt ein bitteres ausscheiden. 

Scr-cfc92 schrieb vor 6 Minuten:

Benzema hat halt den Unterschied gemacht. Wäre super, wenn Chelsea auch mal wieder einen eiskalten Torjäger hätte. Nach Drogba war eigentlich nur noch Diego Costa ein halbwegs effizienter Stürmer. 

... alonso ist wohl unser bester stürmer, zumindest am souveränsten im verwerten von chancen. 

[GianfrancoZola]

6 minutes ago, Scr-cfc92 said:

Benzema hat halt den Unterschied gemacht. Wäre super, wenn Chelsea auch mal wieder einen eiskalten Torjäger hätte. Nach Drogba war eigentlich nur noch Diego Costa ein halbwegs effizienter Stürmer. 

aber. klar, seine 4 Tore sind nicht zu verleugnen aber soviele Geschenke kriegt der nicht mal zu Weihnachten von seiner Mama. 

Extrem frustrierend. Dieses Real waere locker zu schlagen gewesen, aber mit solchen Schlampigkeiten auf dem Level hat man es leider nicht anders verdient. Das 3-2 war ja eine komplette shitshow von RLC, Kante, Ruediger (sein einziger Fehler heute) usw. Aber was solls. 

City wird mit Real eine Gaude haben, das wird zweistellig.

[GianfrancoZola]

Die Ricketts Family hat ihr Angebot den Klub zu kaufen zurueck gezogen. mMn gut so. Bleiben noch die Konsortien von Boehly, Broughton und Pagliuca. Ich hoff Boehly wirds.