Superblue

One thing to note that I saw on Twitter earlier is two of our best women's players are in a public relationship - something that would be illegal in Saudi Arabia. These are going to be the sort of politically sensitive topics we will have to navigate with such owners.

Nick Candy has made some sizeable donations to the Tories. With wealth comes power and anyone with serious money will have some sort of political ties in one way or another. I've never known a politician who doesn't like their hand being greased. The key in a situation like this will be proving that they are their own entity and not influenced in any way by their government.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60738126 This BBC report suggests a sale could happen by the end of this month.

The argument would be however if they can prove there is no direct ties and links to their own Government, what really should the problem be? It becomes then complete stereotyping over race and culture at that point. Why should they not be considered in the same way as an American bid?

It's already been confirmed by numerous sources (and Nick Candy also confirmed on TV before the game yesterday) that the deadline for final bids is this Friday so I would expect there to be some developments fairly soon after this, probably next week and during the international break which will hopefully also give us a bit of time to get things in order. Hopefully once a sale is confirmed going through, there may also be more easing of these ridiculous sanctions currently in place on the club too, so at least if it takes a few weeks we will hopefully still be in a position to carry on as normal as possible.

I think it would be more based on off-pitch matters and decision making as has been mentioned in these independent reviews following the Super League debacle. The whole point I believe is to create greater transparency within board rooms, but I wouldn't expect them to have influence over on-pitch matters such as transfers and managerial appointments or dismissals.

Adrian Durham is extremely polarising (which I completely get it's his job as a radio presenter to spark debate) but he was one of the few who a few months ago rightfully praised the club's charitable work, help and support during the early days of the Covid outbreak, recent times of employing women and black people in high positions within the board and hierarchy of the club all of which were and are rarely touched upon. This piece today for me is spot on and I have a lot of respect for someone prepared to speak out when the vast majority of his peers within the media are taking the opportunity to jump in on Chelsea. It seems like anybody associated with the club is currently only third to Putin and Roman himself in the enemy list at present.

I can't see a situation where we're bought by one person. All the front runners that people are mentioning seem to be consortium based bids so with that in mind people like Martin Broughton and Nick Candy are very much in the frame in my opinion if they have backers. I'm past caring about who has the biggest pockets, firstly I want a club to support more than anything. Secondly I just want someone who is going to run the club to the best of their ability and do what's right for us. Understanding English football in general but more importantly Chelsea as a football club and what it does for the local community and millions of supporters worldwide is important. It is what worries me more with the American consortiums (from what I've heard from Todd Boehly gives me a bit more encouragement however) although they are the ones with possibly the bigger resources to help keep the club competing from a financial standpoint. From what is understood, it won't just be the biggest bid but the best pitch and plan for moving the club forward. I see no reason why this would change if Roman is unable to access the monies anyway. Therefore we can only trust that whether it's Roman himself, or the Raine Group, that they make the correct decision on who they believe is the best option for buying our club.

Quite possibly, I've no idea how the broadcasting deals work and when payments, etc are made to be honest so like you said maybe it's necessary for the club at present that we're on TV as much as possible. It's just an insanely hard watch having to put up with the club that I love getting absolutely smashed in the media. People's true colours come out in times like this.

Yes they're limiting energy price increases to 4%, whilst Brexit Britain deals with a 54% rise.

Today is going to be infinitely worse. The last couple of games have been away, this is a home game being shown on Sky Sports. I think the Roman Abramovich chant goes beyond support and appreciation of Roman, it's almost now in an act of defiance against everyone who seems to be attacking the club right now because it's so provocative at present. For me personally, I would prefer it not being chanted at present and we just focus on supporting the team. There will be a better time and place in the future to show appreciation to Roman. But things could start to turn a bit more toxic today I feel as frustrations could start to boil over regarding the treatment of the club. It's ironic though the number of journalists that are criticising and degrading the club - they have a right not to watch if they're as disgusted as they're writing would suggest but they will all be watching today's game, many likely will even be at the game. Sky Sports will know what is in store too and they'll be secretly loving it. They could easily have decided this week to switch to a different 2pm game today to air but this is the one they want because it's highly controversial (with Newcastle being the visitors an extra backdrop to the story with their new ownership). We'll no doubt all have to put up with the likes of Jamie Carragher (stand up guy spitting at a kid because he was getting wound up) and what appears a more increasingly politically driven Gary Neville who's always happy to flap his gums, give their 2 cents for what it's worth (completely worthless in my opinion). From a media perspective we'll get massacred today. We can just hope the boys are motivated for getting 3 points and moving us closer to a guaranteed top 4 position.

I see Hyundai are going the same way as Three on Trust Pilot

The same Hyundai which were one of FIFA's main sponsors for the world cup in Russia and are currently again one of the main and proud FIFA sponsors for the Qatar world cup. It's hypocrisy more than anything. I don't think anyone will complain about the likes of Trivago and Nike remaining committed on the basis that clearly the club will be changing ownership very soon, so will just keep monitoring developments for now. Will be interesting to know what the position of Chelsea is or can be once everything is sorted. Can the club veto out of these deals with Three and Hyundai and arrange new sponsorships?

The first video - he's going to rock up here and absolutely love some of our players who can play about half a dozen different positions on the pitch. More hybrid winger / attacking midfield / false striker / wing backs incoming!

Agreed. Until we see how everything pans out it's important to both keep continuity and retain experience where we can because the only transfer business we may be able to do in the summer is bringing back loan players. For any new owner coming in though, resigning Rudiger to a new contract has to be priority number one.

One thing to note is if the purchase of the club ends up being around the £2bn mark, it will be a markedly bigger investment to the likes of the owners that have purchased United, Liverpool and Arsenal. It's a big splash and whilst the club needs to continue working towards a more self-sufficient nature and almost certainly more prudent and shrewd in the transfer market compared to previous years, it's not in the interests of the new owners to just let the club coast into mediocrity. The value of the investment is already high and probably questionable as it is, it will plummet if the new owners don't keep us competitive and challenging for trophies.

My understanding is it was originally for £10m and the current balance per reports is circa £8m.

The loan the CPO owes that was taken out to buy the leasehold of Stamford Bridge.

How are they defining profits? If it's essentially those match ticket sales get donated to Ukraine then whilst it's better to have a full house at the Bridge, it's of no real benefit to the running of the club. If it means the ticket sales can help cover operating costs first such as the overall costs related to hosting the game, and any profit beyond this is donated then that's cool. Helps both sides and whilst I don't want to compare and group Chelsea and Ukraine, both need every bit of help at the moment.

I suppose it depends on how you'd interpret 'quite a bit'. We may not win as many trophies as we have in the last 20 years, but I think we'll still remain competitive and challenge for them. The resources Abramovich gave us is almost impossible to follow and replicate, but as long as we're purchased in a prompt manner the club is on an extremely solid footing in terms of finances (if debt free), global appeal, squad and coaching quality, academy, etc. If Tuchel had to rock this same team next season with just loan players returning we'd still be very much in the mix and likely a strong favourite for top 4. Money is probably the easiest route to success but it's no guarantee, just like success doesn't need to be built purely on financial resources. Just ask United fans.

The good thing about this is you would like to assume as one of our bigger sponsors they have been in talks with the club over recent days and are being assured that the ownership of the club will change soon as everything is still just speculation at present. Fair play to them too. The easy route is just to wash your hands clean like Three have done. Hopefully them being the first to post a statement which is extremely respectful to both Chelsea and the war in Ukraine, might be a trigger for others to just hold fire for now and not do anything rash. The wording regarding change in ownership is a perfect backdoor for them to change their minds if the situation changes for the worse.

General question regarding the CPO as I'm looking to buy a share. Regarding the original agreement that the CPO did to buy the leasehold from the club, I understand that Ken Bates arranged a £10m loan for the CPO in order to do this. Based on the recent Supporters Trust statement, I assume that the loan is specifically with the club (reports suggest it currently stands at £8m). In a worst case scenario that Chelsea were to go into administration or even liquidation, does anybody know if anything is in place with regards to the CPO being able to cover this loan if it were suddenly to be called in?

The mentality and use of the loan policy should shift in a different way to how we've seen in recent seasons with the likes of Tammy, RLC, Mount, James, Chalobah and now Gallagher and Broja. It should be the bridge to us bringing more players through from the academy. I remember seeing Gallagher in pre season for Chelsea. He didn't look good enough, and I said this at the time. I've seen him a couple of times for Palace this season and he looks a different player now from the regular exposure to game time and just in general maturing as a footballer. That will be where the loan structure can still work. Young players will still be loaned out. The ones not good enough will be sold on and help still to bring some funds into the club, whilst hopefully there will be the odd one or two that progress to a stage where they can be good enough for the first team squad. Bringing Broja and Gallagher back next season is the equivalent to signing two young £25-30m players. We've only abused the loan system in the past to help adhere to FFP requirements so we don't take huge losses on poor buys. Without Roman we're going to have to be much more shrewder and patient with signings in the future and as a result we hopefully will no longer need to use it in the sheer volume that we have in the past.

The 'saviour' tag will be based on the fact that if no one buys us and the government sanctions continue we'll go out of business. I personally think something will be sorted out before it came to that point, but it's silly to just assume everything is fine in the current situation. We have no means of generating revenue and any sponsorship and prize money will be frozen so whatever monies are available for now won't last forever. I'd be surprised if it can last through the rest of the season. So on that basis anybody who ends up buying us will essentially be the saviour of the football club.

Whilst I'm a little hesitant of an American purely based on other Premier League owners, we can't really be picky at the moment. Boehly's track record does seem to suggest he could be a good owner for the club. This piece is a good read and a couple of interviews I've seen him conduct he does come across as very passionate, well spoken and knowledgeable. Matt Law has pushed his consortium as a very credible candidate throughout the last week or two and still is pushing them as one which still want to buy the club, and given he's usually one of the more reliable or 'in the know' journalists covering the club, you would have to assume he is going to be a front runner to take over.