The deadline to submit bids for Chelsea was nigh on a week ago now – but we’re still only now finding out about some of the offers.
Mark Kleinman of Sky has been leading the way on reporting some of the lesser known bids, and today he’s come out of nowhere with a report that Stephen Pagliuca, owner of Atalanta and the Boston Celtics basketball team, made an offer before the deadline on Friday night.
He has some partners in his bid, whose identity Kleinman describes as “unclear,” but given he’s merely a multimillionaire and not a billionaire, it seems certain he has backing.
Raine Group, who are organising the sale of the club for Roman Abramovich, seem set to give preference to bidders who have experience owning sports teams already, so Pagliuca is well placed in that category at least.
There are now at least 5 bidders for the club who have at least a partial ownership of a basketball or baseball team in the US.
