Jim Ratcliffe holds talks with Chelsea fan groups as he refuses to give up hope

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has not given up hope of hijacking the deal to buy Chelsea, despite Todd Boehly’s consortium being selected as the club’s preferred bidder, and has held talks with supporter groups to outline his vision for the club.

Boehly’s group are in the middle of a five-day exclusivity period and remain the favourites to buy Chelsea, who want to open contract talks with Mason Mount and Reece James once a takeover has been completed. The terms of a deal for the club could be agreed with Roman Abramovich this week.

However Ratcliffe’s £4.25bn bid last Friday is a potential complication. The British billionaire’s late offer was revealed while Raine, the US bank handling the sale, was telling the three shortlisted contenders that Boehly’s group were the preferred bidders, and the 69-year-old is not prepared to walk away yet.

A source close to Abramovich cautioned against writing off Ratcliffe, whose involvement explains why Raine has not publicly confirmed Boehly has beaten competition from consortiums led by Sir Martin Broughton and Steve Pagliuca.

Ratcliffe, who owns the British petrochemicals company Ineos, signalled his seriousness by meeting the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust last weekend. He insisted he would be in it for the long term, revealed plans to raise Stamford Bridge’s capacity to 60,000 and said he wanted to turn Chelsea into the Real Madrid or Bayern Munich of London. A Trust spokesperson said: “While the CST has had initial talks with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his team, no further meeting is yet in the diary.”

The likelihood remains that Boehly’s consortium, which includes his fellow LA Dodgers owner Mark Walter, the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, the British property developer Jonathan Goldstein and the US