Why Chelsea fans have got ‘#NoToRicketts’ trending on social media

Updated: July 25, 2022 at 8:11 pm GMT+1

The hashtag ‘NoToRicketts’ has been trending on social media on Tuesday amid reports that the Ricketts family are frontrunners to become the new owners of Chelsea Football Club.

As per the Evening Standard, the Ricketts family are flying to London in a bid to convince Chelsea supporters they can lead the club to a bright future. The owners of the Chicago Cubs baseball team are confident they are among the front runners to buy out Roman Abramovich and are waiting on confirmation they have been shortlisted in the race to land the European champions.

In terms of the fee that Chelsea FC could secure, The Athletic report that Chelsea are likely to fetch the highest price ever paid for a sports club or franchise after more than 20 interested parties made bids for the Premier League side last week.

It is added that Roman Abramovich appointed New York-based merchant bank Raine Group to run the sales process and it is understood that he was hoping for a figure north of £3.5 billion.

And whilst that figure now seems unlikely due to the sanctions imposed on Abramovich, most football finance experts are now predicting a price tag closer to £2 billion.

But whilst the Ricketts family are seemingly keen to buy the club, fans are not too happy about their potential ownership.

As per football.london, ‘this comes after leaked emails via Splinter were re-posted from 2017 revealing Islamophobic remarks by Joe Ricketts.

The most shared of the quotes across Chelsea fans on social media referred to Islam as a "cult" and revealed the patriarch of the family commenting that "Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy due to their deep antagonism and bias against non-Muslims".’

It has also been reported that the Ricketts family will try to meet with the Chelsea Supporters Trust should they reach the preferred bidder stage with Raine.