Nick Candy picks Vialli for Chelsea team

Nick Candy is teaming up with former Chelsea player and manager Gianluca Vialli to buy the football club. The British property developer has hired Vialli’s investment company, Tifosy Capital & Advisory, to prepare a formal bid of around £2.5bn for Chelsea ahead of Friday’s deadline for offers. Candy is assembling a consortium of global investors, but is only one of a clutch of potential bidders. Oaktree is also preparing an offer for the football club. The $166bn US asset manager, run by Howard Marks in Los Angeles, is planning to bid alone, although it could still become part of a wider consortium, according to two people with knowledge of the plan. Oaktree joins a group of US billionaires and sports moguls racing to assemble offers for Chelsea in a process led by investment bank Raine Group. However, the sale of the club requires a special licence from the UK government, which has already made allowances for Chelsea to continue playing matches despite being owned by Roman Abramovich, who was last week placed under sanctions. The FT (£) Daily Mail