Ryan has shortlisted the bids of Todd Boehle, David Pletzer, Josh Harris, the Ricketts family and Boston Celtics owner Stephen Pagliuca as the four nominees to take over Chelsea.

the athlete I mentioned Thursday night That Nick Candy and Woody Johnson were out of the race to buy Chelsea.

Now it is understood that the Raine Group has selected the last four bids.

Pagliuca, 67, is believed to have a real chance to buy the West London club. He owns Celtics and co-chairs Bain Capital’s private equity group. He also owns 55 percent of Atalanta’s stake in Serie A.

Centricus is out of the race.

Raine aims to complete its selling division by the end of April, at which point they will take their preferred bidder to the government and the Premier League.

Chelsea is up for sale after the British government imposed sanctions on Roman Abramovich earlier this month.

The UK government has described Russian billionaire Abramovich as a “loyal Kremlin oligarch” and his assets have been frozen.

Chelsea are expected to be sold for more than $3 billion (£2.27 billion), while Abramovich has said he doesn’t want any of the £1.5 billion he has pumped into the club.

(Photo: Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images)