Chelsea was reportedly a takeover target by UK billionaire businessman Sir Jim Ratcliffe before he finally bought Ligue 1 side Nice who are managed Arsenal and France legend Patrick Viera.
A co-founder of INSPEC, Ratcliffe made his money through shale gas, before creating the company Ineos in 1998, a multinational petrochemicals giant.
The 65-year-old became the owner of FC Lausanne-Sport, a Swiss football team, in 2017 and it is safe to say that he had a pretty decent last year financially after being named the UK’s richest man in the 2018 Sunday Times Rich List.
His net worth is estimated to be around £21.05bn, compared to Abramovich’s which is reportedly at $11.6bn.
Roman Abramovich has been in charge of the club since 2003, but there have been a few question marks over Abramovich’s commitment to Chelsea when he was rejected for a new UK business visa last season, meaning he could only enter the country for six months in the year under his Israeli passport. Abramovich who was seen regularly at home games in previous years was hardly seen at Stamford Bridge last season.
Chelsea has also shelved their plans of building a new 60,000 seater stadium which was initially supposed to be carried out in time for the 2020/21 season.
While Ratcliffe was linked with a takeover, Abramovich was not keen on selling up.
Ratcliffe completed the £91million takeover of French club Nice just last month, ending any speculation over a move for Chelsea.
