Report: Abramovich snubbed Spurs takeover opportunity prior to buying Chelsea

It has been well publicised over the years that Chelsea’s billionaire owner Roman Abramovich considered buying a stake in Tottenham before his decision to purchase the West London club.

Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson revealed last year that the Russian billionaire was undecided between Chelsea and Tottenham in 2003, and it was he who instructed Abramovich to go with the Blues since they were closer to challenging for honours (Times).

Now, former Chelsea director, Mark Taylor has revealed more details about how close the Chelsea owner came to buying the Lilywhites.

He revealed that the 53-year-old had entered into talks with Spurs before sitting down with Ken Bates, who was the Chelsea chairman at the time.

He also hinted that it was Daniel Levy’s unwillingness to sell a majority stake in the club and cede control that made Abramovich turn his attentions to the West London club instead.

While speaking to the Athletic’s Straight Outta Cobham podcast, Taylor said: “The key point was that when (Chelsea chairman) Ken (Bates) met Roman and Eugene Tenenbaum they made it very clear that they wanted to buy control. I think the story is they had seen Daniel Levy the previous day.

“Chelsea had been looking for investors for about 18 months and we’d had a lot of time-wasters and Roman seemed viable,’ Taylor added.

“Nobody really knew who he was – and so on the Friday morning his lawyers brought in Forbes magazine from America and I think he was No15 on the list with X billion dollars, which seemed to be quite a good starting point.”

Spurs Web Opinion

I might be in the minority here but I’m glad we weren’t taken over by a billionaire like Chelsea and City were. I am proud that we were run in a self-sustainable manner even before the introduction of FFP.

Chelsea and Man City have not earned their success. They have bought it. While we haven’t had much on-pitch success in terms of trophies, our growth into one of the ‘big six’ happened organically and that makes me extremely pleased.

Related Topics