Chelsea fans have nailed their colours to the mast and made no secret of the fact that a lot of them are unhappy with the idea of The Ricketts family owning the club.
The Blues have been up for sale ever since Roman Abramovich was the subject of sanctions from the UK government as a result of his close relations with Russia president Vladimir Putin. Plenty of potential suitors have thrown their hat into the ring when it comes to who could succeed the Oligarch.
One group that has now long been in the running for the status of new owners of Chelsea are the Ricketts family, well-known to baseball fans who will be well-versed in how the family operate due to their reign as owners of the Chicago Cubs. However, they are comfortably the least popular choice of all the bidders with sections of the Chelsea fanbase due to a series of leaked emails that have emerged from years ago.
Joe Ricketts, the family patriarchy, was found to have described the Muslim community as "my enemy" in one email sent in 2010. He issued an apology immediately after the emails surfaced, but the saga has since sparked obvious concerns as to whether the family are suitable owners. A fair amount of match-going supporters clearly do not think so, as scenes outside the ground proved.
Before the 3pm kick-off at home to Brentford on Saturday, a number of Blues fans were spotted chanting "You're not wanted here, you're not wanted here - f*** off Tom Ricketts, you're not wanted here." Tom is the family member spearheading the bid for the club.
Tom issued a statement addressing the concerns, writing: "Over the past fortnight, our bid team has met with several supporter groups to explain our vision for Chelsea football club. In those meetings, and by letter to all groups, we have shared a set of specific commitments we will make to fans, if our bid is successful.
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"We believe these are far-reaching and certainly include an absolute commitment on the part of the Ricketts family and the bid team to put diversity and inclusion at the heart of the club. We look forward to more meetings - including with the Chelsea Supporters' Trust - over the coming days and to making a public reiteration of our values and commitments."
In response, the Chelsea Supporters' Trust released a statement of their own. "Last week, the CST stated that the Ricketts family must urgently and publicly address supporter concerns - especially with regard to inclusivity, given both past and recent statements by members of their family. We also committed to surveying our members as to their confidence and support in the Ricketts family bid for Chelsea FC.
"Yesterday (April 1), we conducted a snap survey of our membership. We asked our membership whether, based on information in the public domain as of April 1, they had confidence that the Ricketts family would run an inclusive and successful club, and we asked whether they supported the Ricketts family's bid.
"72% of those who responded do not currently have confidence that the Ricketts family would run an inclusive and successful club, with 5% believing they would. Similarly, 77% of members who responded do not support the Ricketts family bid for Chelsea and 3% of respondents are in support.
"It is essential that the new owners of Chelsea FC have the confidence of the supporter base and demonstrate an understanding of the values that we stand for. At present, it is clear that our membership neither supports nor has confidence in the Ricketts family's bid for the club. This is reflective of wider concerns articulated by large, vocal sections of Chelsea's supporter base.
"The CST Board is guided by our membership, and thus we do not currently believe it is in the best interests of our members for the Ricketts family's bid to succeed.
"We await further public detail from the Ricketts family on concrete steps they will take to address the well-documented concerns of Chelsea supporters. Should the Ricketts family publicly set out clear and detailed plans on how they will address support concerns, we may survey our members again in the next week."
