Ratcliffe passes-up Chelsea chance to focus on on French side Nice

The only prospective British owners of Chelsea have outlined the reasons why they won't be involved in Roman Abramovich's auction for the club but are instead refocusing efforts to guide French club OGC Nice into the Champions League and towards winning their first trophy.

Bob Ratcliffe, brother of Ineos petrochemicals billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, runs the company's football division, which looked at buying Chelsea in 2019 but rejected them and Newcastle and instead bought Nice, who look on course to make the Champions League next season and have reached the French Cup final.

Jim Ratcliffe is worth £20billion according to Forbes and initially bought Swiss club Lausanne in 2017 and then Nice for a reported £88millon in 2019. 

Speaking to Sportsmail about the bidding for Chelsea, Bob Ratcliffe said: 'You have seen what my brother said in the past - we don't want to be dumb money. 

'We look at what we paid for Nice for European competition, it's nothing like what you pay in the UK.

'Is Chelsea really a fire sale? I'm not sure. That's a good story but I'm sure it's still a very big number.

'With Nice we're through to the cup final in France, that's pretty significant. It's early days but with Nice we have proven our hypothesis. We've not paid stupid money to put that team together and we're having fun with it.' 

Having inherited Patrick Vieira as coach, who had got the club into the Europa League, they sacked him after a poor run of results and last summer brought in France's most-wanted manager in Christophe Galtier, who took Lille to the title last season.

Nice, who are third in Ligue 1, also knocked Paris Saint-Germain, Lionel Messi and all, out of the French Cup and reached the final after beating Versailles last