Jim Ratcliffe holds talks with influential Chelsea fan group after £4.25bn bid for club

British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe has held talks with the influential Chelsea Supporters’ Trust as he waits for word on his last-ditch £4.25 billion ($5.3bn) bid to buy the Premier League club.

The Ineos chief tabled his late bid on Friday in what now represents the biggest offer to buy out the London club from Russian owner Roman Abramovich.

Ratcliffe made his surprise bid two weeks after the deadline set by US advisory firm Raine Group, who are handling the sale on behalf of Abramovich who has been sanctioned by the UK government for his ties to President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

“While the CST has had initial talks with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his team, no further meeting is yet in the diary,” Dominic Rosso, CST’s vice chairman told Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Ratcliffe is mounting a last-minute challenge to former Guggenheim Partners president Todd Boehly for control of Chelsea. Boehly, one of the owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, last week emerged as the frontrunner for the football club.

Boehly – and other hopefuls British businessman Martin Broughton and Bain Capital co-chairman Steve Pagliuca – were all hoping to hear this week about which of their consortium offers to buy the Blues had been selected as the preferred bid.

During that time, the bidders spent time meeting supporter groups, politicians and even former players to boost their chances of success.

The current uncertainty at Chelsea played a part in Antonio Rudiger's impending move to Spanish side Real Madrid. Reuters

Abramovich put the club up for sale in early March, shortly before the UK government placed him under far-reaching sanctions.

Since then, Chelsea have been running under a number of restrictions that have prevented them from selling