Billionaire Dan Gilbert, the Detroit mortgage loan mogul and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, has joined a group bidding for the Chelsea Football Club in London, the 2021 league champion.
Gilbert joins a consortium led by the Chicago Cubs-owning Ricketts family and hedge fund tycoon Ken Griffin, Sky News reports. The club is currently owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.
Sources told the British news channel that Gilbert's Rock Entertainment Group agreed to invest a significant sum in the bid. The club, founded in 1905, plays in the Premier League, the top division of English soccer, or football as they say across the pond.
Sky News posts:
The emergence of Dan Gilbert, one of the richest people in America with wealth estimated by Forbes magazine at almost $31bn, as a participant in the auction raises the stakes still further as a quartet of bidders vie to succeed Roman Abramovich as Chelsea's owner.
Abramovich bought the team in Julky 2003. He recently announced its sale in the wake of sweeping Western sanctions against Russian oligarchs in response ton theior president's Ukraine invasion.
"As I have stated before, I have always taken decisions with the Club's best interest at heart," he said in a statement, according to Insider. "In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the Club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the Club, the fans, the employees, as well as the Club's sponsors and partners."
He added: "Moreover, I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine."
