The Times - UK (2022-04-30)

the times | Saturday April 30 2022 2GS 3

Chelsea takeover Sport

Ratcliffe has already invested

in cycling, sailing and F1

for national asset Chelsea’

Matt

Dickinson

What drove this

multibillionaire to

make late offer?

S

ir Jim Ratcliffe turns 70 later

this year. “A big number,” he

says. The type of anniversary

that makes a man conclude

that it is not the time to hold

back on an inviting opportunity —

like buying one of the world’s leading

football clubs, for instance.

Of course, Ratcliffe is far too much

of a hard-headed businessman to be

launching a late bid for Chelsea on a

whim or as an early birthday present

to himself. Rather, he made his offer

yesterday — one which last night

looked likely to lose out to the bid led

by Todd Boehly, co-owner of the LA

Dodgers — because the valuation of

the club, at £2.5 billion, was less than

he had initially been led to believe.

Explaining why he had invested in

Nice in Ligue 1 rather than the

Premier League, Ratcliffe told The

Times in 2019: “Ineos [his

multinational chemicals company]

never wants to be the dumb money in

town.” Manchester United was the

club of his childhood but he felt the

valuation, at about £4 billion, was too

excessive, especially given how much

would need to be spent to improve

the team and Old Trafford.

At £2.5 billion, plus a commitment

to spend £1.75 billion on the stadium,

players and infrastructure over the

next decade, Ratcliffe decided that the

numbers for Chelsea were acceptable.

He opted late in the day to join the

bidding against three American-

funded consortiums, raising a fresh

debate in an already complicated

process about whether the club is

better off with a British owner.

Why did he launch a bid? As

Ratcliffe has discovered in recent

years, since Ineos became a huge

investor in cycling, football,

sailing and Formula One,

sport ticks a lot of boxes for

him and the vast company he

founded with two old friends.

Ratcliffe used to call Ineos,

which has expanded from

petrochemicals into cars and

clothing, “the largest

company you’ve never

heard of”. Now, he

wants to make a noise.

There is also personal

fulfilment. “One

should, if one can, try

to maximise the

number of days that

are unforgettable,” he

once said. And if you

are one of the

country’s richest men,

you have the means to

make your sporting

fantasies come true.

This is a man who started fishing as

a hobby and ended up buying a

300sq km estate in salmon-breeding

grounds in Iceland. An offer to ride

with Geraint Thomas, the 2018 Tour

de France champion, in Monaco was

one of the wooing tactics to get him

to commit to taking over Team Sky,

with an annual investment of

£40 million.

For pouring an initial £110 million

into Ben Ainslie’s attempt to win back

the America’s Cup — since increased

with the aim of ending the

interminable wait for a British victory

— Ratcliffe not only gets to be part of

that challenge but to have a sporting

great on the payroll to take him for a

spin on super-fast yachts.

With an investment in Mercedes

F1, he not only has the Ineos name

branded over the car but mixes in the

pitlane. Soon after Ratcliffe bought

Nice, he sat on the team bus on the

way to a big match against Paris-Saint

Germain, to experience the thrill and

the atmosphere.

Given wealth that, according to The

Sunday Times rich list peaked at

£21 billion in 2018 thanks to his 60 per

cent stake in Ineos, Ratcliffe has the

means to turn dreams into reality,

including in his words, trying to take

Chelsea “to the next level”. He sought

to emphasise that his bid was the only

British offer on the table, which may

have caused some to roll their eyes,

given he is a resident of Monaco, but

he hoped to win over supporters.

“This is a British bid for a British

club,” an Ineos statement read.

The American owners of Liverpool

and Manchester United were behind

plans for the European Super League

and Ratcliffe insisted he would be

true to the traditions of Chelsea and

also the wider English game.

Ratcliffe has had to face plenty of

awkward questions in the past about

his overseas residency, his company’s

tax affairs and, when buying Team

Sky, about fracking and production of

plastic, given that the outfit had

previously been involved in a

campaign to clean up the seas.

Lancashire-born Ratcliffe,

who speaks with the directness

of a proud northerner,

effectively told his interrogators

that if they stopped using

plastic, he would stop

manufacturing it.

He is not afraid to

say what he thinks

— and no one can

doubt the

seriousness of his

bid, even if it looks

unlikely to

succeed. When he

knows what he

wants, perhaps

especially

approaching 70,

Ratcliffe is not a

man who tends to

mess around, as

Chelsea discovered

from his last-ditch

intervention.

about £2 billion, and he saved the Los
Angeles Sparks women’s basketball
team from extinction in 2014 and
bought a 27 per cent stake in the LA
Lakers last year.
The Dodgers won their first World
Series in 32 years in 2020, and they
also won eight straight Western
Division titles after the takeover by
Boehly’s group. Goldstein previously
considered a bid for Tottenham
Hotspur through the Cain group.

what have they said?
Finkelstein explained why he was
supporting the Boehly group’s bid last
month. “These are smart guys, who

don’t just have the money to invest,

they get how to use it,” he said. “They

understand data, and fans. I’m really

excited about the plans for fan

involvement. I want Chelsea to be

pioneers. This is a bid from fervent

sports fans; really successful backers

of champions. Just look at the LA

Dodgers, what they have invested

and what they have won.”

Barbara Charone, a public relations

expert who is also part of the bid, has

said that Chelsea are in “an

unbelievable place”, while also ruling

out any future Super League talks

with the Boehly group in charge.

what have others said?

Paul Canoville, Chelsea’s first black

player who runs a foundation in his

name promoting diversity, threw his

support behind the Boehly offer.

“The Todd Boehly team who met

with myself and my foundation chair,

Raphael, were the ones that

impressed us most,” Canoville said.

“The UK-based team members are

hugely experienced and passionate

Chelsea fans, so apart from the global

sports marketing expertise of the LA

Dodgers they have people who

understand our club’s culture.”

Those involved with the Dodgers

have spoken glowingly about how

they have been run. “Since we came

together to buy the Dodgers, there is

no ownership group that’s ever been

better than this one,” the Dodgers

president, Stan Kasten, told the

Telegraph

issues they must tackle

The Boehly Group will need to

convince Thomas Tuchel of their

vision for Chelsea — the German

manager has said he is staying at the

club but has spoken of the damaging

impact of government-imposed

sanctions on his transfer plans.

They will need to replace key

defenders Antonio Rüdiger and

Andreas Christensen, who are set to

leave when their contracts expire,

and address the issue of Stamford

Bridge, given planning permission to

expand the ground expired two years

ago. They will also have to decide

whether to hold on to the director

Marina Granovskaia and technical

and performance adviser Petr Cech.

February 26 Two days after

Russia begins the invasion of

Ukraine, Roman Abramovich says

he will hand the stewardship of

the club to the trustees of the

Chelsea Foundation.

March 1 Swiss billionaire

Hansjörg Wyss, 86, reveals he is

interested in buying Chelsea. It

later emerges he is part of a

consortium headed by the LA

Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly.

March 2 Abramovich announces

he will sell Chelsea, write off the

£1.5 billion loan owed to him by

the club, and claims he will

donate all proceeds from the sale

to victims of the war.

March 10 Abramovich is

sanctioned by the UK

government over his links to

Vladimir Putin. Chelsea can

operate under a special licence,

albeit with heavy restrictions.

The club cannot buy or sell

players, negotiate contracts, sell

merchandise or tickets for

home games.

March 25 Four bidders are

shortlisted by the Raine Group,

the merchant bank tasked with

finding a buyer. The shortlist

includes the Boehly group, the

Ricketts family, who own the

Chicago Cubs, Stephen Pagliuca,

the Boston Celtics co-owner, and

Sir Martin Broughton, the former

British Airways chairman whose

consortium includes the Crystal

Palace investors Josh Harris and

David Blitzer.

April 15 The Ricketts family

withdraw after their consortium

cannot agree how its offer

should be structured.

April 28 The bidders are told to

increase their final offers by

£500 million by Abramovich.

April 29 Sir Jim Ratcliffe

threatens to hijack the process

with a £4.25 billion offer. It

emerges that the Boehly group

will be the preferred bidder.

How takeover saga

has unfolded

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND

Boehly helped transform LA Dodgers

Senior Sports Writer