“Chelsky”, is it over? An era of almost twenty years is about to end for Chelsea FC. Its owner, Roman Abramovich, put it up for sale after placing it under the guardianship of the club’s charitable foundation, presenting himself in a brief press release as the ” Guardian “ values and interests of the London team.
Not yet placed on the list of relatives of the Russian regime subject to the freezing of their assets, he thus intends to exempt the club from possible sanctions. He also promises to donate the net proceeds of the sale to a fund for “all the victims of war”and to draw a line under 1.8 billion euros loaned to the club.
When he arrived in 2003, although Chelsea was a local institution, his record had only one national championship title (1955) and two trophies from the defunct European Cup Winners’ Cup (1971, 1998). Since then, the club have been champions of England five times, won two Champions Leagues (2012, 2021) and two Europa Leagues (2013, 2019).
The « Blues » were the first “new rich”, these clubs whose buyers are determined to buy, with lost funds, a place within the European elite, among the “historic clubs”. Abramovich is the oligarch of this oligarchy.
Even more facets than passports
Associated with a wealthy neighborhood, volatile supporters, prohibitive ticket prices, a workforce of mercenaries and the controversial profile of its owner, Chelsea initially aroused some antipathy, gradually attenuated by sporting success and the trivialization of passages under foreign flag.
An enigmatic character with even more facets than passports (Russian, Israeli, Portuguese), Abramovich had several lives: mechanic, entrepreneur, trader, protégé of Boris Berezovsky, boss of the oil empire Sibneft (sold in 2005 to Gazprom for 13 billions of dollars), deputy and governor.
A member of Boris Yeltsin’s inner circle, he will show his credentials to his successor. Although he had always taken care to maintain the vagueness of his links with Vladimir Putin, he was one of the billionaires enjoined by the head of state to restore the power of Russian sport.
“At this game, he is probably the most prominent oligarch in the 2000ssays researcher Lukas Aubin in Sportokratura under Vladimir Putin (ed. Bréal, 2021). He created the National Football Academy in 2004. (…) In ten years, it made it possible to build more than 140 football pitches across Russia, for 1.1 billion rubles. »
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