The True Blues Consortium has told Sky News that the consortium which features the NBA chairman Larry Tanenbaum is “aligned” with the interests of Chelsea supporters ahead of Thursday’s deadline for final bids.
Thursday's deadline for final bids, which are expected to value Chelsea at more than £2.5bn, will come 48 hours after they were knocked out of the Champions League - a competition they won last season - after a dramatic quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid.
It has also been thrown into sharp relief amid growing unrest at Manchester United, where the controlling shareholders - the Glazer family - have failed to conclude talks about a fan share scheme more than eight months after they had targeted its launch. His bidding line-up also includes John Burbank, founder of the San Francisco hedge fund Passport Capital, and Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who was the first investor in the tech behemoth.
Scrutiny of the four bids by English football's top flight has already got underway after the remaining consortia submitted details of their key investors to Raine 12 days ago. The sale process has been complicated by the sanctions against Mr Abramovich but has not inhibited interest from a multitude of billionaires who either control or own stakes in a legion of North American teams spanning baseball, basketball and ice hockey.