After announcing his intention to sell Chelsea on Wednesday, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s tenure as the club’s owner appears to be coming to an end.
Abramovich has transformed Chelsea’s fortunes since purchasing the club from Ken Bates in 2003. The team has won 18 major trophies, the most of any English club at the time, tied with Manchester United.
However, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, his time at Stamford Bridge appears to have come to an end. With pressure mounting on the government to censure him and other Russian millionaires living in the UK.
On Wednesday, millionaire Hansjorg Wyss informed Swiss Daily Blick that he had been asked to buy Chelsea. Wyss, 86, made his fortune as the creator of Synthes. It is a company that makes bone fracture implants and surgical power instruments.
Boehly, the chairman and CEO of investment firm Eldridge Industries. It is part of a group that is considering making a bid. In 2019, a part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team made a bid of almost £2 billion for the club. Abramovich reportedly rejected it since it was £1 billion short of his asking price. Before starting Eldridge Industries in 2015, he worked his way up through several American banks.
The richest man in Britain, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has expanded his athletic portfolio in recent years. He has rebranded Team Sky as Team Ineos and purchased Ligue 1 football club Nice. Ratcliffe’s fortune stems from Ineos, a petrochemicals behemoth he created in 1998. And despite being a Manchester United fan, he has been a season ticket holder at Chelsea.
As the owner of Peshawar Zalmi, Javed Afridi is a household name in the country’s domestic cricket scene. As the owner of the electronics business Haier Pakistan and MG Motors Pakistan, the 36-year-old has acquired enormous money despite his youth.
Loutfy Mansour is the Egyptian chief executive of Man Capital, the investing arm of his family’s $6 billion company. Mansour is a season ticket holder at Stamford Bridge. His commercial holdings, which include a McDonald’s franchise in Egypt, look to provide the necessary finances for a takeover.
On Thursday night, UFC legend Conor McGregor tossed his hat into the ring, sharing a screenshot of a WhatsApp message to an unknown receiver that said “let’s purchase it.” Unsurprisingly, the Irishman’s entry into the contest is unlikely to be successful. Even if he was serious about it, his $180 million in earnings in 2021 is still a long way off from Abramovich’s ten-figure estimate.
Read Also:
