Inside Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s meeting with Graeme Souness about buying Chelsea – five years before Man Utd takeover
SIR JIM RATCLIFFE met with Graeme Souness to discuss buying Chelsea five years before his Manchester United takeover.
The British billionaire had been keen to turn the Blues into a force that could replicate Real Madrid’s Champions League dominance.
Ratcliffe is now set to purchase a 25 per cent stake in United, instead.
Britain’s second richest man already owns French side Nice through his Ineos group and previously eyed a deal to acquire Chelsea.
Souness has revealed he met with Ratcliffe years before Todd Boehly’s £4.25billion takeover in 2022.
Recalling their meeting, he told talkSPORT: “Five years ago, I was asked to go and see Jim Ratcliffe.
“A friend of mine does some business with him and said he’s thinking of buying a football club, would you go and meet him?
“So I went and his office is just by Harrods. I went into reception and the lady there phoned his office.
“He came down and he said, ‘Thanks for coming, do you mind if we walk up to the office?’ Because he’s a bit of a fitness freak, it’s about six floors up.
“We sit down and he says, ‘I’m thinking of buying Chelsea. Would that be a good buy?’
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“I said, ‘Yeah, I think the timing might be right, I’m getting indications that maybe Roman Abramovich is getting fed up with it.’
“He said, ‘What would it cost?’ And I said, ‘I would imagine you’re looking at £2bn.’
“And then he said, ‘What would it take to replicate what Real Madrid have done and dominate Europe? We live in the greatest city in the world, London. Why is there not a team in London that can do what Real Madrid have done?’
“I said, ‘It wouldn’t be impossible but you’d need a large slice of luck and a lot of money.’
“He said, ‘How much money?”
“So I said, ‘over the next ten years maybe another four or five billion, the way transfers are going.’
“His response was, ‘Would it be fun?’
“I said, ‘Well I don’t know what your idea of fun is but spending five or six billion pounds on a football team knowing there’s going to be peaks and troughs along the way, only you can answer that’.”