Inside the chaos surrounding Chelsea and Roman Abramovich
By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
When he bought Chelsea back in 2003, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich might as well have arrived in a golden chariot. Within a heartbeat, Chelsea’s squad was stocked with some of the best and most expensive talents in the world. Player salaries went through the roof.
Money, quite simply, was no object. English soccer had never seen anything like it. The financial race was now on, and the game would never be the same again.
It hasn’t seen anything like what is about to happen now either, 19 years later, as Abramovich tries to make his hurried exit from the English Premier League and the British government attempts to make sure he doesn’t profit while doing so.
Abramovich is one of seven Russian oligarchs with operations in the United Kingdom who had their assets frozen Thursday, as part of the international backlash to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
For Chelsea, as one of those assets, the repercussions are immediate and unprecedented. Two-thirds of the way through a campaign that sees the team sitting third in the EPL and on the verge of the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League, Chelsea are — for now — prohibited from selling tickets to their games, though existing members can enter if they have a prepaid season ticket.
Any agreements for new or renewed player contracts are barred, Chelsea cannot sell club merchandise, and there are caps on all spending that extend to how much can be used to transport the squad to matches.
Abramovich was targeted because of the widely held assumption that he became so wealthy through negotiating secret deals to exploit Russia’s natural resources.
According to a statement backed by British prime minister Boris Johnson, the Chelsea owner and Putin are on "close" terms and have been since Abramovich's former position as governor of Russia’s Chukotka region in the early 2000s.
"Abramovich is associated with a person who is or has been involved in [destabilizing] Ukraine and undermining and threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, namely Vladimir Putin, with whom Abramovich has had a close relationship for decades," the statement read.
When it became clear that Putin’s Ukraine actions would have repercussions for Russian-linked businesses and individuals, Abramovich moved to cede stewardship of the club to Chelsea’s charitable trust in the closing days of February.
Soon after, Chelsea were put up for sale, sparking a flurry of reported bids that suggested a potential price of close to $4 billion, due to the EPL’s vast television revenue and global fan base.
As things stand, though, a sale will not be permitted. If special dispensation were given for the team to be sold — something that might be necessary if it is to operate as normal — it would be on the condition that Abramovich could not profit from the proceeds.
Maybe it is in the nature of the sports fan to concern themselves simply with the product in front of them, rather than asking too many questions about what made it all possible.
Either way, the reality is that more has been spoken about the origins of Abramovich’s wealth in the past week than in the previous 19 years. So bold were his sporting moves, so hard-charging was his desire to turn Chelsea into a domestic and European giant that everyone got swept along for the ride.
Abramovich bought Chelsea from former owner Ken Bates for less than $90 million in 2003, at a time when the club was struggling to make ends meet. Within days of his arrival, new player after new player began to be scooped up at what quickly became inflated rates — because the word was out.
Chelsea had money to burn. And burn Abramovich did. When he discovered that fan favorite Gianfranco Zola had been sold to Italian team Cagliari just before his purchase of the team, Abramovich inquired about buying Cagliari so he could force them to sell Zola back.
That didn’t work out, but it was about the only thing that didn’t work in the early days. Since Abramovich acquired the club, Chelsea have spent an estimated $2 billion on new players, with a net spend (accounting for revenues from players sold) above $600 million.
His never-say-no approach ushered in the EPL’s gilded age. More overseas investors quickly followed, prompting even more spending, ever higher salaries and the near unanimous acceptance that the EPL is the best soccer league on earth.
Chelsea fans could scarcely believe their luck. After not winning the English title since the 1950s, they have celebrated five EPL crowns and two Champions League victories in the Abramovich era. The most recent success was last season’s Champions League title, helped by United States captain Christian Pulisic.
Christian Pulisic a Chelsea hero in Champions League
Along the way, there were occasional rumblings about Abramovich’s history, but those were few and far between.
"You can’t look at this in a purely footballing context," The Times journalist Matthew Syed said in 2013, as part of a Sky Sports special on the 10th anniversary of Abramovich’s arrival. "You have to look at the wider moral context, and in that sense, it has been a deeply corrosive influence on British football."
Now it has all caught up with Abramovich. From one of the most powerful men in soccer to having all his power stripped away. For Chelsea, meanwhile, a future that looked nothing but bright is now mired in uncertainty.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
