Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain's richest man, has been given the green light to complete his takeover of OGC Nice, according to reports in France.
The CEO of chemicals company Ineos is worth more than £21billion and reportedly enquired about taking over Manchester United .
He has also been linked with a move to buy Chelsea from Roman Abramovich and has made no secret of his desire to dip his toes into the football market.
He already owns FC Lausanne-Sport of Switzerland having purchased the club in November 2017, and local newspaper Nice Matin say French football's financial watchdog, DNCG, have given his purchase of Nice the green light and the move will be made official by the middle of August.
Ratcliffe is believed to have bid in excess of £89m to buy the club after improving on the £77m offer he had rejected back in February.
The tycoon first ventured into sports by investing £110m in Britain's America's Cup sailing team last year, plus he rebranded cycling giants Team Sky as Team Ineos when he purchased them ahead of this year's Tour de France.
Speaking to BBC Sport earlier this year, he discussed aiming to increase his involvement in football.
"I think we've dipped our toe into the water with football," Ratcliffe said.
"It's a very different sport. It's quite a complicated sport and a complicated world, and we've dipped our toe in the water.
"We're in the process of learning. We brought this club in Switzerland, and that's really been educational.
"We haven't got to where we've got to in our chemicals and business world by being impetuous and rash and stupid, obviously.
"We recognise it's a very complex world, and we're going through that process of learning.
"We're not in a desperate hurry to get to the end game in football."
Nice finished seventh in the Ligue 1 campaign and are now looking to push on under the guidance of former Arsenal legend Patrick Vieira.
