Roman Abramovich Can't Sell Chelsea After The UK Freezes His Assets

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Hey Friends,

The United Kingdom has officially sanctioned Russian oligarch and billionaire Roman Abramovich. That means his assets in the UK are frozen, he can’t travel to the UK, and no UK citizen or company is legally allowed to conduct business with him.

The news broke less than three hours ago, so there are still a lot of questions to be answered. But the impact of this decision on Chelsea FC appears to be tremendous.

So what does this decision by the UK government mean for the sale of Chelsea?

Well, I think it’s pretty clear that Roman Abramovich knew this was coming. He first attempted to shield the asset by placing the team in a charitable trust weeks ago but eventually announced that he was selling the club instead.

He told fans that Chelsea wouldn’t be required to repay the $2 billion he personally loaned the club and even announced that he would be donating all net proceeds from the sale to victims of the war in Ukraine. Chelsea fans worldwide celebrated, and they even chanted the Russian billionaire’s name at a match last week.

But circumstances have changed, and now Abramovich doesn’t look like a hero.

His connection to Vladimir Putin has been well documented throughout the years. He was one of Putin’s early political supporters. He was attending birthday parties for Putin in the 1990s. He reportedly purchased him a $50 million yacht, and he even recommended him for President when Boris Yeltsin was looking for a successor.

Now I think it’s probably wise to let the courts decide if Roman Abramovich has done anything illegal. But the optics don’t look great, and with anything tangentially related to Russia being seized or frozen, we should have expected this outcome.

Still, it will be interesting to see how this plays out from here.

The UK government has issued a special license that allows Chelsea to continue their season, and my guess is that they certainly don’t want to assist in the deterioration of the Premier League’s global image — it’s the crown jewel of European sports.

But the new sanctions don’t allow Abramovich to sell the club….unless he allows the UK government to control the process, and he receives no proceeds from the sale.

And since I assume that is a non-starter for him (unless he really does have the club's best interest at heart!), this might turn into a long-and-drawn-out process.

Ultimately, Roman Abramovich’s proximity to Vladimir Putin was always a risk. His UK visa was revoked years ago, and he only recently re-entered the country for the first time since 2018 by using his Israeli passport.

But you can’t help but feel bad for the Chelsea community.

Sure, they benefitted tremendously from Abramovich’s willingness to spend money and overall aggressive ownership style. Still, they certainly didn’t ask for this — sports fans don’t deserve to have their team held hostage due to a war they didn’t want.

It’s probably too late at this point, but since it feels disengenious to present a problem without a solution, my gut is telling me that the UK government should have attempted to expedite the sale of Chelsea in private before implementing sanctions.

That would have been better for them, Chelsea, the Premier League, millions of fans, and Roman Abramovich — but I guess we might never know.

I hope everyone has a great day. We’ll talk tomorrow.

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