Chelsea Football Club is affectively acting like they are in a form of Administration right now, people laid off from Jobs, certain limits on travel to games and chiefs of the club in constant dialogue with the government on easing the current license imposed on the club. One thing is for Certain, the sale needs to happen as quickly as possible so that Chelsea can no longer worry about the current financial restrictions, with that being said, let’s have a look at all the candidates to buy Chelsea so far in further detail, with contributions from well known Chelsea influencers Simon Phillips and CFCDaily.
Candidate Number 1 : Todd Boehly’s consortium which consists of Hansjorg Wyss and Jonathan Goldstein
Todd Boehly would be the head of this bid, and he previously tried to purchase Chelsea in 2019 seeing a 2.2 BILLION GBP Rejected, so in that sense, surely he is a sensible and realistic option, right? Boehly owns Eldridge Industries which has a supposed $40BN in assets. His interviews have caught the attention of many Chelsea fans in which some he states that the need for top structure is essential alongside the constant need for winning, where’s the evidence though? Well luckily his time as a 20% stake holder in the LA Dodgers has seen the team be competitive every season they’ve played, alongside the fact that Bohely forked out £124m in one weekend to sign 2 players for the side. Boehly is reportedly leading the race for Chelsea, according to Matt Law from Telegraph Sport, and you can be assured he is being taken seriously after already having significant interest in Chelsea in 2019.
What’s the potential issues?
Actions speak louder than words, there are plenty of American owners who have done well within sports in their country and not translated it over to the Premier league, let’s take the Arsenal owners for example, they have often prioritised the LA rams over Arsenal in terms of both financial backing and also attention and care, would Boehly be the same? Or would he be more like FSG of Liverpool where it would be more about enhancing the structure of the club which many Chelsea fans feel necessary, alongside making smarter signings as opposed to splashing the cash every summer. We have seen the excellent work of Michael Edwards at Liverpool who was involved in deals such as Virgil Van Dijk, Fabinho and Alison whilst sanctioning high fee’s for “ Flops “ such as Dominic Solanke who was sold for £24m and Mamadou Sakho who was sold for £26m after an initial £2m loan fee.
Can boehly find people with both footballing and financial brains to steer Chelsea to success? Will he keep Marina Granovskia in the same role, or in any role at all? These are questions that you could only find out when a purchase is close and others are ruled out. Boehly has a long standing interest in football, having met the Real Madrid president Florentino Perez in 2013 to discuss potential business with the club.
What about Hansjorg Wyss and Jonathan Goldstein, why are they involved?
It’s unclear why 86 year old Billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, reportedly worth $5BN wants to be apart of owning Chelsea Football Club, however a worrying report did come out a couple of weeks ago from Nicola Imfield on Twitter who has close ties to Wyss, he suggested it was more to do with getting Abramovich out of the club because he did not have respect for him, this is not something that went well down on Chelsea twitter, unsurprisingly.
Synthes is a company Wyss founded in the 1970s which manufactures medical devices – e.g. internal screws and plates for broken bones. Wyss has a master’s degree in civil and structural engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich while he also obtained an MBA from Harvard’s Business School, He has been based in the U.S. since the 1960s and throughout his career has also worked in the steel industry and sold aircraft as a side business, not exactly a portfolio that you would associate with Football.
As for Jonathan Goldstein, it’s understood that he is a London based property developer so this could be Boehly’s man to spearhead the development of Stamford bridge which is reportedly a major requirement for the new owner / owners to tackle. In that sense, Jonathan would be a good man to have on board as anyone with property development experience will be essential to the ground development.
One of the only worrying fans, is that Jonathan is described as a Spurs fan in many articles online with a google search, interesting, would that put you off him?
Candidate Number 2 : Mohamed Al Kherejii, the Chairman of Saudi Media Group
Probably the candidate that Chelsea fans want the most who is the Chairman of Saudi media group who want to place a bid for the club. Mohamed Al Kherejii is a Chelsea fan, and so are his kids, according to Nizaar Kinsella, he has big plans for Chelsea, developing the stadium, renewing Rudiger, wanting to win constantly and also changing how the perception of women’s football is viewed, Saudi Arabia has some horrifying rules and evidence of treatment of women so it would be understandable the media uproar that would occur if a Saudi Group came in. However, this particular group has NO government ties and they are a private entity, so the particular group coming in cannot be so quickly ruled out, it is understood.
Al-Khereiji received a bachelor’s degree in finance from Prince Sultan University in 2006. Six years later he obtained an executive master’s degree of business administration from the London-based Business School, formerly Cass.
From 2006 to 2007 he worked as an analyst for Deutsche Bank in London. From 2009, and for nearly four years, he was director of business development at Al Arabiya before becoming its deputy CEO in 2013. Three years later he became the CEO of the company, which some market reports listed as one of the top global outdoor advertising companies in 2019.
The main thing for the Saudi Media Group will be proving that they do not have ties to the government, alongside having to get past the fit and proper persons test from the premier league.
In some ways, it would be very hypocritical for the premier league to reject a Saudi ownership, as Newcastle are linked with the PIF of Saudi Arabia, the chairman of which is the crown price of Saudi Arabia Mohamed Bin Salman, who has been apart of some horrific crimes. We await to see how much the Saudi Media Group’s interest develops.
Candidate Number 3 : Nick Candy
Nick Candy is a British property developer and a lifelong Chelsea fan, but he does not have the wealth that the other candidates do and has been looking for investors to help him get a bid, he has offered short term funds to help Chelsea’s cash flow and it was revealed by Nizaar Kinsella that he held a private meeting with Marina and Cech after the Newcastle United match on Sunday.
I’m personally not a fan of Nick Candy, not because I think that he wouldn’t re develop Stamford bridge, but because he is reportedly taking funds from Citadel LLC, a hedge fund from America, many fans have stated they feel like Candy could be here for profits, alongside the fact that he wants fans involved in the board, this screams of judging with emotion over logic for me, I do not think this would be a good idea. Furthermore, Nick Candy was pictured in a government based lockdown party when millions were stuck inside suffering with mental health including myself, so you have to question what type of person he really is.
One fan stated : “ Citadel are a hedge fund who have been in the news the last year because of how US hedge funds play stock market. I don’t beleive any hedge fund will have chelsea or the fans anywhere near top of their list of priorities “
We are going to move onto hearing from Simon Phillips and CFCDaily now, first off, Simon Phillips ( @Siphillipssport on Twitter ) who gives his opinions on the current ownership situation alongside what he’s hearing from some sources, you can find more inside information from Simon on his sub stack. ( https://siphillipstalkschelsea.substack.com/ )
“ All buyers will have positives and negatives, just depends where and what you are reading, people believe different things depending on who they want in! I think we’ll end up in good hands!
Nick Candy is in regular dialogue with the club and wants to help us tick over now. He’s got a team together and will make an offer as well. The Saudi’s have always been played down to us due to the complications, but that doesn’t mean they won’t get it. I’ve spoken to many in the industry this week who believe the Boehly group will get it. But here, we have always been told that there’s a good chance it goes to a name nobody has mentioned yet. We have also been told to expect significant developments on Tuesday, so we’ll see if anything happens “
To add to this I dont care who buys it as long as their ambitious and with the club’s best intentions at heart. I think the way it is being sold and applications being studied thoroughly, then I think we will be OK “
Simon Phillips – ( https://siphillipstalkschelsea.substack.com/ )
And now it’s time to hear from our next guest writer, @CFCDaily, who argues that all 3 of the top interested parties as things stand, would offer no less scrutiny in some way or another than we are already facing now. :
Boehly, Candy or the controversial option of ‘Saudi Media’ if it’s any of these three names that have been put forward then the political issues we’ve just had thrown at us in the past couple of weeks we most likely won’t see peace.
Boehly seems to have the least political influence but with the involvement of Hansjörg Wyss, reports claim he has had involvement regarding US elections, do Chelsea want someone who has swayed elections in control? The next option in Nick Candy is by far the worse of the three mentions. The UK have taken the club off Abramovich due to political ties but if the club ends up in Candy’s hands it would be in the hands of a Tory donor and someone who was at the 2020 lockdown parties whilst the rest of the UK suffered in lockdowns. In terms of political influence the Saudi Media group, nobody can confirm or deny, would purchasing the club be in the love of the club or would it be another sportswashing exercise which could open up a can of worms further down the line? Not according to the UK government who are working close with the Saudi Arabian leaders. If Chelsea don’t want political influences in the future then any of these names won’t clear that.
Despite this, my preferred option is the Saudi Media Group. The reasons? They have been the ones to release a business plan and strategy that takes this club to a new level whilst seemingly having the funds and the ability to attract lucrative sponsorship deals. My 2nd option is the Boehly backed bid just on the hope he wants the best for the club and to share his passion for sport at Chelsea. If we end up with Nick Candy then the future of this club is in just as much uncertainty than it is now.
@CFCDaily on Twitter
Do we know about any other options?
Yes, it’s important to state first though that there’s so many conflicting reports and everyone has different sources, but multiple people have said that there’s been around 200 interested parties, however only a certain few have emerged as serious ( likely due to the £2BN + price tag ).
Woody Johnson, the owner of New York Jets is reportedly interested in making a bid according to Matt Law and various other sources, however his record with the jets has been nothing short of abysmal, in 2000, Woody purchased the Jets for $635m, he vowed to make them winners.. instead, 22 years later, the Jets have yet to play in a second super bowl let alone win one, and have not even made the play offs in 11 years, the longest drought in the history of the NFL, on the basis of this, it’s fair to say that he is an absolute no go.
Muhsin Bayrak has been a interesting topic in the Chelsea community ever since Roman decided to sell, Muhsin is a Turkish billionaire who has gone very public over his attempts to buy Chelsea declaring that he’s “ going to wave the Turkish flag “ in London, and that it’s “ Very important for tourism and Turkey “ however there has been no sight of anything about building on the current successes of Roman Abramovich stated in his interviews conducted with Turkish outlets.
Muhsin claims to be a close friend of Abramovich and his spokesperson has also said that he’s met Roman to discuss a deal once already, so let’s see if this helps him win the race, however again, like so many other candidates, he does not have a footballing background in his portfolio. Muhsin made his money in the energy industry aswell as Crypto, it’s estimated his net worth is around £8BN.
Finally to end off this piece, let’s bullet point the names that have also been mentioned in relation to a potential by reliable sources, take these with a pinch of salt.
• Josh Harris ( American Investor ) $5.6BN USD
• Sir Martin Broughton ( British Businessman )
• Tilman Fertita ( Owner of Houston Rockets ) $5.8BN USD
It remains to be seen who wins the race and takes over the current European and World Champions, but they can be assured that they are coming into an extremely passionate fan base who is used to winning, and they’ll have to follow on with that trend to avoid a rocky, potentially nasty relationship between owner and fan.
