The list of Chelsea bidders will be narrowed down to final three by the Raine Group, the U.S. bank overseeing the sale of Premier League club.
Chelsea were put up for sale by owner Roman Abramovich following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but the Oligarch was later sanctioned by the British government giving them the control of the club.
Raine had set a deadline of 2100 GMT last Friday for bids to be put forward.
Several bids were made public while many more were said to have been submitted privately. To move things forward the list will now be narrowed down to final three with the process being slowed by revised bids still coming in.
Candy’s Blue Football consortium led by Nick Candy, one of the three Chelsea bidders who made their offers public on Friday, revised their bid on Monday after being joined by “another large Korean financial institution”.
Property developer Nick Candy, submitted a bid of over two billion pounds ($2.63 billion) to Raine on Friday, but has since increased his offer “significantly”, without disclosing by how much or the name of the new investor.
From there the prospective buyer must pass the Premier League’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test before completing the takeover.
The test outlines factors that would prohibit an individual from becoming an owner or director of a club. These include criminal convictions for a wide range of offences, a ban by a sporting or professional body and breaches of certain key football regulations, such as match-fixing.
The two other consortium’s who made their offers public last week were the Chicago Cubs owners the Ricketts family, and the pairing of former Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton and World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.
