The race to own Chelsea took yet another dramatic twist on Friday when the consortium led by the American Ricketts family, owners of the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise, withdrew having been unable to reach agreement with their billionaire partners over how the operation would be run.

The Ricketts family bid, led by siblings Tom and Laura Ricketts, and partnering with private equity billionaire Ken Griffin, as well as Dan Gilbert, owner of NBA franchise Cleveland Cavaliers, withdrew from the race having lobbied hard to overcome objections from Chelsea supporters.

It means that the way is clear for what is expected to be a straight battle between the consortium of Todd Boehly, another US investor, Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, and British entrepreneur Jonathan Goldstein on one side; and Sir Martin Broughton’s US-backed group on the other.

The fourth bidder, led by Stephen Pagliuca, who owns a 55 per cent of the Serie A side Atalanta looks an increasingly distant third given his presence on the pitch at the Bergamo club after Thursday night’s Europa League tie and the difficulty of divesting himself of that shareholding.

The private equity billionaire, a co-owner of the NBA franchise Boston Celtics, has not yet had the stamp of approval from the influential Chelsea Supporters’ Trust [CST].

The Ricketts-Griffin-Gilbert bid issued a statement referring to “certain issues” that could not be resolved by the partners. It is understood that the three parties, who have worked together in the past, could not agree who would take responsibility for running Chelsea were they to be successful.

The club’s sale, for which the deadline was Thursday to formalise bids, is likely to be the biggest in sport franchise history with an estimated price of around £2.5 billion to take it from the Roman Abramovich ownership.

The Ricketts-Griffin-Gilbert bid had overcome strong opposition from fans over Islamophobic remarks made by patriarch Joe in emails sent in 2009.

Apologies on behalf of the Ricketts and meetings with the CST had largely addressed those concerns. A statement by CST on Thursday praised the “outreach and and continued commitment to supporter dialogue” of all but the Pagliuca bid.

There had been strong fan protests against the Ricketts bid at Stamford Bridge before the recent surprise defeat by Brentford. In a statement the Ricketts-Griffin-Gilbert group said it had “great admiration for Chelsea and its fans” and wished the new owners well but had decided “after careful consideration”, not to submit a final bid.

It said: “In the process of finalising their proposal, it became increasingly clear that certain issues could not be addressed given the unusual dynamics around the sales process.”

The Ricketts bid had only recently announced that the lifelong Chelsea fan and crossbench peer Lord Bilimoria, the British-Indian businessman who founded Cobra Beer, would be a part of the board were they to be successful.

Among the conditions for bidding for Chelsea, the US merchant bank organising the sale, Raine Group, has stipulated that the new owner must commit £1 billion for investment in the club. Pagliuca pledged this week to commit to the redevelopment of Stamford Bridge.

As for Broughton’s bid, which has the backing of Chelsea fans and peer Sebastian Coe, there is still no clarity on its key financial backers. They are understood to be the US sports investors Josh Harris and David Blitzer who already own 38 per cent of Palace, Chelsea’s FA Cup semi-final opponents on Sunday.

Speaking on Friday, manager Thomas Tuchel said that he was not aware that Palace’s owners could be making a bid to takeover Chelsea.

“Maybe you will not believe me but I am maybe one of the worst informed of these [bidding] groups in the city,” Tuchel said. “Simply it does not change a thing for me. If I was to dig in deep and examine all the bids and all the information it would not change that I do not have a say in it.”

Abramovich suffered another setback on Friday when close associations Eugene Tenenbaum, a Chelsea director in the past, and David Davidovich were also sanctioned by the British government under the new legislation to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tuchel said that the latest news had not affected the team. “I don’t know the implications and what it means actually for the club right now … right now I think it is not a further distraction, it is just one more of the same kind and we still hope things will calm down and be sorted out in the process with the Government.”