The Stamford Bridge take-over has got new entrants. Tennis former World Number One, Serena Williams and Formula1 champion, Lewis Hamilton will be jointly investing $26M to boost the consortium led by Sir Martin Broughton. Both Hamilton and William are known to dabble in investments, having done so in the past few years. The Broughton-led consortium are joined by that led by Todd Boehly and the another by Steve Pagliuca in the race to purchase Chelsea Football Club. The Ricketts family dropped out of the race as they did not put together a final bid in by the deadline of submissions late last week. The sale of Chelsea came days before former owner, Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the United Kingdom government for having close ties with the Vladimir Putin regime which had led Russia into invading Ukraine.

Raine Group, a United States merchant bank is the one held responsible for executing the Chelsea sale and with Serena Williams and Lewis Hamilton pledging $10M each, they add value and perception to the former Liverpool and British Airways chairman led consortium. Hamilton has won the Formula1 7 times while Williams has won 23 grand slams. They have both been in talks with Broughton and his co-investors for several weeks now. They both have impressive investment portfolios that they have established in the recent years and Hamilton is known to be an Arsenal fan and even sites Ian Wright to be his childhood hero. Williams invested in the Los Angeles based women's football club Angel City alongside Natalie Portman and Eva Longoria. 

Josh Harris and David Blitzer who bring most of the financial backing in the Broughton-led bid will have to divest their minority stake in Crystal Palace in order to meet the Premier League regulations. Other investors in the bid include; Colombian-American philanthropist Alejandro Santo Domingo, Canada's Rogers family, and Taiwan's Tsai family.