Mercedes AMG F1 co-owner, Jim Ratcliffe, has put in a late bid to take over as the owner of Chelsea Football Club. The London-based club is up for sale after the Russian-Ukraine fallout that forced Roman Abramovich to sell The Blues. Lewis Hamilton earlier made a bid with Serena Williams to buy the defending Champions League winners.
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Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe is a Monaco-based British billionaire. He is a chemical engineer who turned financier and industrialist. Jim is the founder and chairman of the Ineos Chemical group and has two-thirds of the ownership. Interestingly, Ineos has been a major sponsor of the Mercedes AMG F1 team for the last few years, meaning he also has ownership in the team.
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The statement from Ineos read, “Sir Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of Ineos, has made a formal bid for Chelsea FC, for £4.25bn; £2.5bn is committed to the Charitable Trust to support victims of the war, with £1.75bn committed to investment directly into the club over the next 10 years.”
Talking about the bid, the statement further stated, “This is a British bid, for a British club. We believe that a club is bigger than its owners who are temporary custodians of a great tradition. With responsibility to the fans and the community.”
“We will invest in Stamford Bridge to make it a world-class stadium, befitting of Chelsea FC. This will be organic and ongoing so that we will not move away from the home of Chelsea and risk losing the support of loyal fans”
Both Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes Sponsor Ineos’s bid set to fail?
Lewis Hamilton, known to be an Arsenal fan, earlier made a sensational bid with tennis star Serena Williams to take over as the joint owner of the Stamford Bridge club. Lewis and Serena both pledged to give around $12.5 million each after linking with British businessman and lifelong Chelsea fan Martin Broughton.
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However, Hamilton’s bid is set to fail, and so is the Ineos Chairman’s. Jim, who owns the French football club OGC Nice, has put his bid at the 11th hour. This seems to be too little too late for the Monaco-based businessman to have Chelsea ownership.
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A report by The Telegraph stated that Todd Boehly and his group won the race to buy Chelsea more than £3.5 billion despite the dramatic effort by Jim Ratcliffe at the very last moment.
