El Chapo: Mexican drug kingpin wanted to buy Chelsea Football Club

Notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman apparently didn't meet all of his goals before he was recently recaptured. He had hoped to spend some of his ill-gotten gains purchasing England's powerhouse Chelsea Football Club, according to Mexican authorities.

El Chapo was "seriously looking into purchasing" the premier club, law enforcement sources told Diario Sport. With an estimated net worth close to $1bn (£700m, €920m), he had the means to do so. Guzman was allegedly looking to merge his two loves; football and what the Mexican press euphemistically call "entrepreneurship," noted the Fox Soccer blog.

But it's highly unlikely Guzman could have passed the British football leagues' "fit and proper person" test required of potential buyers of football clubs. The leagues instituted the rule in 2009 to protect clubs from falling into the hands of unscrupulous owners. Besides, Roman Abramovich is not looking to sell Chelsea.

According to Forbes' 2015 soccer valuations, Chelsea ranked No. 6 among all world football clubs with an estimated team value of just under $1.4bn (£98m). Among Premier League teams, Chelsea ranked a very close third behind Manchester United and Manchester City.

Guzman was busted on 8 January just months after he gave an exclusive interview with actor Sean Penn that was published in Rolling Stone magazine. Authorities said the interview helped lead them to El Chapo's hideout.

Now Guzman's lawyer is saying Penn's interview — in which El Chapo boasted of being the biggest supplier in the world of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine — was full of "stupidities."

Guzman is "a very serious man, very intelligent" and knows better than to incriminate himself, attorney Juan Pablo Badillo tolf Reuters.