Roman Abramovich, a Russian mystery in London, moves to shield his prize soccer asset

The billionaire owner of Chelsea FC has scrambled to protect his most visible prize after UK imposed sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian billionaire owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich, has rushed to protect his prize London asset from UK sanctions. Picture: Ben Stansall/AFP

When Roman Abramovich landed in London in 2003 with the intention to buy one of the city’s soccer clubs, all the sellers knew about him was what they found in a cursory Google search. He was Russian. He had made a fortune running the Sibneft energy company. And he had ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Beyond that, Mr Abramovich was a mystery wearing a scruffy beard and jeans, according to people who were present.

Nearly two decades later, the billionaire owner of Chelsea FC is one of the best known Russian investors on the planet – an investor in the globally popular English Premier League and a totemic member of the London oligarch class. But this weekend, he was scrambling to protect his most visible prize after the UK announced initial sanctions against Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Abramovich hasn’t been targeted by UK government sanctions. But on Saturday, he announced that he was transferring “stewardship and care” of Chelsea to the trustees of the team’s charitable foundation. The club, however, isn’t for sale and he remains the owner.

UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss made it clear on Sunday that the government wasn’t done chasing down Russian assets.

“We are targeting oligarchs’ private jets, we’ll be targeting their properties, we’ll be targeting other possessions that they have,” she told Sky News. “There will be nowhere to hide.” The US Treasury announced similar plans over the weekend, creating a task force to hunt down the physical assets of sanctioned companies and Russian oligarchs, from yachts to penthouses and cars. It also aims to clamp down on the sale of so-called golden passports, which allow Russian elites to essentially buy citizenship in other countries.

Mr Abramovich had reason to worry that he and Chelsea would fall under scrutiny. He previously ran afoul of Prime Minister Theresa May’s administration in 2018, when the U.K. blocked his British visa renewal during a crackdown tied to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury, England. That led Mr Abramovich, who is no longer based in London, to cancel his plans to spend more than $US1bn on building Chelsea a new stadium in the heart of the city.

Through it all, the intensely private Mr Abramovich has remained almost silent. The only comment on recent events from anyone close to him appeared to come from an Instagram account widely believed to belong to his daughter Sofia.

“Putin wants a war with Ukraine,” the post read. “The biggest and most successful lie of Kremlin’s propaganda is that most Russians stand with Putin.” Mr Abramovich, however, has been closer to Mr Putin than most Russians. He rose to prominence in the energy and metals sector in the 1990s and early 2000s while maintaining a close friendship with the Russian president.

When he landed in English soccer in 2003, Mr Abramovich was unlike any investor who came before him. At the time, club owners were primarily self-made local millionaires, not globetrotting billionaires who split their time between West London, the French Riviera, Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Moscow. But with Chelsea in dire financial straits under British owner Ken Bates, the club didn’t take long to accept his takeover bid. It barely asked why Mr Abramovich was interested or what he might be doing in soccer, according to people who were present.

Mr Abramovich had “blue-chip advisers and blue-chip banks” behind him, says Trevor Birch, the accountant who orchestrated the sale. Sitting in a suite overlooking the pitch at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium, they struck a deal for 140 million British pounds, equivalent to $US187.8m, in less than 30 minutes.

“No, it’s not about making money,” Mr Abramovich told the BBC in a rare 2003 interview. “I have many much less risky ways of making money than this. I don’t want to throw my money away, but it’s really about having fun and that means success and trophies.” Mr Abramovich went about creating that success by spending like no one had ever seen in the English game. One of the league’s first foreign owners – and one of its most impatient – he single-handedly warped the transfer market by paying high transfer fees for anyone Chelsea could get its hands on and heralded the league’s era of super-investors. (And still, the money he spent on talent was dwarfed by what he later spent on luxury real estate around the world and his 533-foot superyacht.) Within two years of taking over, Mr Abramovich had his first Premier League title and was on his way to building a juggernaut. The club would add four more titles on his watch, as he hired and fired managers. Chelsea also twice won club soccer’s most prestigious tournament, the Champions League, including last season.

Now, he is purposely putting distance between himself and his pet project. “I believe that currently they are in the best position to look after the interests of the Club, players, staff, and fans,” Mr Abramovich wrote of the trustees in a brief statement.

Mr Abramovich’s arrival was only the beginning of major Russian investment in global soccer. By the end of the decade, Russia had secured the hosting rights to the 2018 World Cup, putting the world’s most popular sporting event in Mr Putin’s backyard.

At the same time, the state-backed energy giant Gazprom was buying club sponsorship and growing into a major partner of European soccer’s governing body, UEFA. The 2022 Champions League final was due to be held at the Gazprom Arena in Saint Petersburg this May until UEFA last week moved the game to Paris.

“UEFA shares the international community’s significant concern for the security situation developing in Europe,” it said, “and strongly condemns the ongoing Russian military invasion in Ukraine.”
The Wall Street Journal