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.
