Chelsea announced to stop accepting applications to buy the club, a last-minute candidate appeared

The process of accepting offers to buy Chelsea will close this evening local time, before a shortlist of candidates will be announced.

2 tables of Chelsea against Lille in the second leg Champions League round of 16 (source FPT)

Commercial bank Raine Group, the intermediary negotiating the acquisition of Chelsea Club, set a deadline to close the application round at 5pm US time (equivalent to 21:00 UK time – 3am 19/3 Vietnam time). After that, a round of evaluation will take place to select a shortlist consisting of the 4 most potential candidates.

The Ricketts did not receive much love from Chelsea fans

Time is the top priority of the parties involved in the purchase and sale of Chelsea, when the club is in a difficult situation after the penalty against billionaire Roman Abramovich of the British Government. This tycoon then sold the team, accepting not to take back any money.

On Wednesday, the Ricketts family – the owners of the Chicago Cubs baseball team – publicly confirmed their intention to buy Chelsea. However, the family got into trouble in 2019, when head Joe Ricketts was forced to issue an apology after a series of leaked emails revealed he had written that “contemporary Muslims will be my enemy.”

It should be known that Chelsea’s number of Muslim players is not small, such as N’Golo Kante, Antonio Rudiger, Hakim Ziyech and Malang Sarr. In the event that the Ricketts family takes over the team, the future of these players is likely to be precarious.

As recently as yesterday (Thursday 17/3), London-based investment group Aethel Partners made an offer of £2 billion, with a support of £50 million to be injected directly into the bank. team account to help Chelsea overcome immediate difficulties.

In addition, Aethel Partners announced that it would keep the composition of the leadership and coaching staff “The Blues”, including coach Thomas Tuchel, if selected as the new owner. In addition, the promise of the renovation of Stamford Bridge is also included in the offer of this investment group.