Chelsea welcomed Newcastle today in the Premier League. But the storylines surrounding the game dwarfed the actual matchup on the field.
Chelsea and Newcastle's pregame coverage on Sky Sports primarily focused on the future of the home side.
An interview with Petr Cech provided little insight. But then Laura Woods interviewed Matt Law of the Daily Telegraph. Law is a journalist who has been embedded in the Chelsea story over recent weeks. He offered a stark warning about the immediate future of Chelsea when Woods asked.
"The immediate future before a sale is pretty grim to be honest with you," Law answered.
"They can't really bring in any revenue at the moment and that includes operational revenue. If there isn't going to be a sale, they've probably got 2-3 weeks max so they're relying on a sale. That's got to be the focus now, they need to sell the club. So that would go a long way to alleviate their problems."
Selling the club isn't straight forward. Abramovich put the club up for sale after he was named in parliament. But his valuation of the club was far too high. That prevented a quick sale. Abramovich cannot profit from any sale now because of the sanctions. That takes away his financial motivation to sell the club.
Without the profits, it's hard to see where this goes. Abramovich will have to write off losses. He likely won't get any money one way or another from this point, so maybe he actually did love the club and will do right by it to keep it alive.
If he does sell the club, there are a large group of bidders already identifiable.
"We know that Todd Boehly, who is the part owner of the LA Dodgers, he's made a bid between £2 billion and £2.5 billion. There's the Ricketts family, another American bidder and Woody Johnson who owns the New York Jets. They seem to be the front runners.
"Nick Candy, a British businessman who I believe is here today as a season ticket holder, he's made public the fact that he wants to make a bid. Raine, the merchant bank who are in charge of the sale for Roman Abramovich, they say they've had interest from over 200 parties at the moment."
The process for the sale is different now. Abramovich and his bank no longer control everything. The government will be the first hurdle for the next owner.
Law explained the process to Woods on Sky Sports.
"The big thing is they have to get government approval now. So there's a deadline of Friday for bids to come in. Once they pick the preferred bidder it will go to the government. They have to give their approval both to the proposed buyer and also to where the funds are going to go.
"After that it will go to the normal fit and proper persons test that the Premier League do.
"So getting through the government is the next big hurdle."
One further issue is the time it takes to bring in a new owner.
"The actual process for an owner to be in situ, I can't imagine that you can do it in fewer than six weeks. In terms of actually having the club. But in terms of knowing who the next owner will be, hopefully they'll know within the next week to 10 days."
This uncertainty particularly impacts players who are out of contract in the summer. Antonio Rudiger, Cesar Azpilicueta and Andreas Christensen all fall into that category. Each player is drawing interest from other big European clubs. Those clubs can talk to the players now and agree to deals with them now.
This is the best Liverpool team under Klopp
Football on Off The Ball brought to you by Sky. All the football you love in one place across Sky Sports, BT Sport & Premier Sports.
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
