World Athletics president Seb Coe, MLB owners, tech billionaires and South Korean consortium in running to buy Chelsea FC

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe, the owners of the Chicago Cubs and LA Dodgers, a consortium of South Korean companies and a Swiss billionaire are all in the running to buy Chelsea FC after the Premier League club was put up for sale after UK government levelled sanctions on the club's owner, Roman Abramovich.

Coe — the former chairman of the FIFA Ethics Committee and British Olympic Association and current member of the IOC — has joined forces with former Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton as one of several consortia to have submitted bids to purchase the club, the deadline for which was on Friday.

Elsewhere, South Korean companies Hana Financial Group and C&P Sports Limited have banded together with British Property developer Nick Candy to bid 2 billion pounds ($3.55 billion) for Chelsea.

In a statement, Candy — a lifelong Chelsea fan — said that the consortium also included «significant investors from Silicon Valley and tech billionaires that own other shareholdings in sports teams in the USA».

«Football clubs are vitally important community and cultural assets, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give football back to the fans and put them at the heart of the operations and strategy of a leading global football club,» Candy said.

«I believe Chelsea has all of the fundamentals to become the most valuable and respected sports club in the world and a force for the greater good in everything it does.»

Raine Group, a US bank, has been overseeing the sale process since before the Russian billionaire was sanctioned.

C&P Sports chief executive Catalina Kim had earlier confirmed that her company and Hana — the title sponsor of the Korean Football League and the national soccer team — were considering a bid.

«We