Chelsea ‘close’ to acquiring stake in RC Strasbourg — report

The first piece of Chelsea’s proposed, but very much theoretical so far, multi-club empire might finally be falling into place, at least according to The Guardian, who report that we are now “close” to acquiring a stake in RC Strasbourg in France.

It’s unclear exactly how big of a stake we’re talking. You would have to think that in order to make this endeavor truly useful, we would have to get at least majority control (i.e. more than 50 per cent), but the biggest shareholder currently at Strasbourg and the key stakeholder with whom we’ve been talking for months, Marc Keller, only owns a little over a quarter (27 per cent).

Chelsea have faced rejection at every turn so far, be that in Portugal, France, Belgium, or Brazil, but it looks like Strasbourg might indeed be happening — though final negotiations might also be affected by whether the Alsatian club manage to remain in the French top flight. Despite a wonderful uptick in form recently, with four wins from five, they are only five points clear of the drop zone, with three games to play.