Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has announced that he will sell the English football club Chelsea, which he has owned for almost twenty years, a period in which he had transformed it into one of the strongest clubs in the world by winning 5 national titles, two Champions League, two Europa Leagues, a European Super Cup and a Club World Cup.
In a statement, Abramovich wrote: «I have always made decisions thinking about the interests of the club. […] So I decided to sell it, I think it is in the interest of the club, the fans, the employees and the sponsors ». In recent days Abramovich had already announced that he wanted to leave Chelsea’s administrative control, without making explicit references to the invasion situation in Ukraine.
In the communiqué on Wednesday, however, he writes: «I have given a mandate to create a charitable foundation to which the profits from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be dedicated to all victims of the war in Ukraine. […] It was incredibly difficult to make this decision, and it pains me to leave the club like this. “
Abramovich is one of the best-known Russian oligarchs, precisely because of his activity as an entrepreneur in the sports sector. The oligarchs are a small group of private citizens who have accumulated enormous wealth since the collapse of the Soviet Union and who maintain close relations with the Russian presidency, influencing its political choices.
Russian oligarchs were among the first people affected by Western economic sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is why it seems increasingly plausible and confirmed that they are harboring growing dissent against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war he has begun. . Moreover, Abramovich personally participated in the meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations which was held on Monday.
Abramovich, who is 55, started his entrepreneurial activity between the 1980s and 1990s, founding several import-export companies. In 1995 he acquired the majority stakes in the oil company Sibneft, which in a few years enormously increased its value making Abramovich one of the richest men in the world. He sold his shares in 2002 to Gazprom, the largest Russian energy company, owned by the state, for about 12 billion euros.
Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 with the aim of making them one of the strongest teams in Europe. Until then the London team had only won one English championship, in the 1950s, but in the following decades they had not reaped major successes. Abramovich decided to invest heavily in the team right away, buying some of the best footballers in the world. However, the real turning point came only in 2004, when he hired Portuguese José Mourinho, who had just won the Champions League with Porto, as a coach. That same year Chelsea won their first league title in fifty years.
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