Lewis
Hamilton and Serena Williams are committing millions of pounds to one of the
bids vying to become the new owners of Chelsea.
Sky News can exclusively reveal the full line-up of investors backing the
takeover offer for the club being spearheaded by Sir Martin Broughton, the
former Liverpool and British Airways chairman - the most prominent of whom
are the seven-times Formula 1 world champion and the former women's world
tennis No 1.
Sources close to the group said that Hamilton and Williams - the
highest-profile members of any of the three remaining consortia - had
pledged an estimated £10m each to the bid.
Both Hamilton, who will compete for Mercedes at the Emilia Romagna Grand
Prix at Imola this weekend - live on Sky Sports - and Williams, who has won
23 Grand Slams including seven Wimbledon titles, have become established
investors in their own right in recent years.
Serena Ventures, the tennis star's venture capital fund, this week announced
an investment in Opensponsorship, a British-based sports technology
start-up, while Hamilton has backed a range of early-stage companies such as
Zapp, the London-based rapid grocery delivery app.
Their involvement in the Chelsea auction is unexpected - not least because
Hamilton is an Arsenal fan.
Hamilton and Williams have, however, been in talks with the group
spearheaded by Broughton for several weeks.
It was unclear on Thursday morning which corporate entities would be used by
the pair to invest in the Blues.
The consortium is uniquely British-led among the trio of shortlisted bidders
and features another UK sporting icon in the form of Sebastian Coe among its
backers.
A source close to the group said the addition of Hamilton and Williams was a
serious investment decision because of their experience at building global
sports brands.
They also pointed out that the involvement of the pair was not the first
time famous athletes had backed a Premier League club - NBA star LeBron
James has been a small shareholder in Liverpool for more than a decade.
Under the consortium's plans, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE),
the holding company headed by American private equity billionaires Josh
Harris and Dave Blitzer, would hold a controlling stake in Chelsea -
although they will need to divest their minority shareholding in Crystal
Palace prior to completing a deal.
Their involvement with the ownership and running of Crystal Palace since
2015 is also a distinctive factor among the remaining bidders for Chelsea.
The Broughton-led group's other investors include: Canada's Rogers family,
which holds a big interest in the media and telecoms company Rogers
Communications; John Arnold, who chaired the Houston 2026 FIFA World Cup bid
committee; and Taiwan's Tsai family, which owns the Taipei Fubon Braves and
Fubon Guardians baseball teams.
As Sky News reported on Monday, Alejandro Santo Domingo, an heir to one of
the world's biggest brewing fortunes and an investor in several North
American sports franchises, is also investing in the bid.
Sources close to the offer led by Broughton said the diversity of its roster
of global investors was among the factors that had persuaded Hamilton and
Williams to become involved.
One insider suggested that Hamilton was likely to play a formal role in
Chelsea's future efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion if the
bid is successful.
He and Williams have been advocates in their respective sports and beyond in
promoting equality, lending their names to numerous anti-discrimination
initiatives.
That issue was thrown into sharp focus earlier in the Chelsea sale process
when one of the bidders - a consortium headed by the Chicago Cubs-owning
Ricketts family - was forced to distance itself from historical Islamophobic
remarks.
Broughton's consortium is said to believe that it is best-placed of the
remaining consortia to navigate the complexities of owning Chelsea,
including the prospective redevelopment of its Stamford Bridge home.
The other remaining bidders in the running to buy Chelsea are consortiums
headed by Todd Boehly, the part-owner of the LA Dodgers baseball team, and
Steve Pagliuca, who owns stakes in the NBA's Boston Celtics and Serie A's
Atalanta.
The consortium led by the Ricketts family withdrew its offer last week, with
members of the bid understood to have been unable to agree on the final make
up of the deal.
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