The United Kingdom government placed sanctions on the owner of famed soccer club Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, as a result of his alleged ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin late last week on March 10.
Abramovich has been removed as the director of the club; his assets are frozen and travel bans have been placed by the UK government. Six other Russian “oligarchs” have been sanctioned including Igor Sechin, Oleg Deripaska, Dmitri Lebedev, Alexei Miller, Andrei Kostin, and Nikolai Tokarev.
The English Premier League released a statement: “Following the imposition of sanctions by the UK Government, the Premier League Board has disqualified Roman Abramovich as a Director of Chelsea Football Club. The Board’s decision does not impact on the club’s ability to train and play its fixtures, as set out under the terms of a licence issued by the Government which expires on 31 May 2022.”
Abramovich is the primary owner of the private Millhouse LLC investment firm, which owns Chelsea Football Club; they are now limited in spending $26,000 on travel to away matches and approximately $1.17 million on hosting home games.
Chelsea F. C. was placed “for sale,” with the asking price of £3 billion ($3.9 billion), due to complications resulting from Russia’s advance into Ukraine as Abramovich likely anticipated the government sanctions.
Complications may impact the sale as the UK government will likely have some form of involvement in the terms of the license upon agreement of the sale of the club; and may likely impact the amount of the sale.
Having received multiple offers below the asking price, Abramovich will be unable to retain any profits from the sale as the transaction will require a final approval by the UK Department of Culture, Media, and Sport.
Part-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers, Todd Boehly, and Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss have been mentioned as part of a group attempting to win the bid for Chelsea F. C.
New York merchant bank Raine Group is accepting offers until this Tuesday as they were appointed to handle the sale of the club.
Abramovich was formerly the Governor of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Forbes valued his net worth at 12.9 billion in 2019, and he has citizenship in Russia where he ranks as the 11th wealthiest person, Portugal as the wealthiest, and Israel as the second richest person.
As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Abramovich made his fortune obtaining Russian state-owned assets at tremendously below-market prices using Russia’s “loans for shares” privatization program.
Besides Putin, Abramovich had close ties to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
