Bruce Buck’s participation in Ricketts: There is dissatisfaction among bidders for Chelsea Football Club’s future owners because of apparent favoritism shown to the Ricketts family when chairman Bruce Buck managed to arrange a meeting between the family and Paul Canoville, the club’s first black player, to resolve earlier statements.
Buck had an intermediate role in arranging a meeting that took place last Thursday, hours before the shortlist to take over from Roman Abramovich was announced, as initially reported by The Times and subsequently independently corroborated by Football.London
After Canoville tweeted that he had “seen and heard enough” from the prospective buyer and was “saying a big fat anti-racism no to the Ricketts bid,” the meeting with him and Tom Ricketts, who is leading the effort to acquire the club, was meant to smooth things over.
A large number of fans have campaigned against the Chicago Cubs’ new owners being the team’s custodians, citing prior Islamophobic remarks made by the patriarch Joe and two of his three sons.
The Raine Group, a New York-based merchant bank with long-standing ties with the Ricketts family, is in charge of the club’s sale.
“Why has Bruce helped Ricketts organize this meeting?” an unidentified source close to another bid told The Times. It’s a joke, of course.
He’s really assisting them in cleaning up their image, despite the fact that we’ve all been informed we won’t be able to speak to a Chelsea official until next week. We consider it a violation of the process’s rules; a failure to follow the directions.”
The Ricketts, a consortium led by LA Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly, a bid led by Sir Martin Broughton, a former chairman of British Airways, and Atalanta part-owner Stephen Pagliuca is the four companies battling for control.
They’ve been warned that final proposals must be submitted by April 11, with Raine planning to contact the government the following week to modify the club’s operating license requirements. The new owners are expected to take over in early May.
