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- Herausgeber: Biteback Publishing
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
The sale of Chelsea Football Club in 2022 was one of the highest-profile and most controversial sports transactions of all time. In the shadow of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, what unfolded after Roman Abramovich was forced to put his beloved club up for sale would change English football for ever. Under the threat of bankruptcy and ruin, Chelsea pulled off a complex transaction in three tense and troubling months – a quarter of the time many analysts would normally set aside for such a deal. Sanctioned is the definitive account of this unique period.Through unprecedented access to Abramovich himself and key figures from Chelsea's new ownership, as well as further interviews with a star-studded footballing cast, Nick Purewal unfolds a wide-ranging tale of political sanctions, hushed negotiations and Cold War-style geopolitics, all told in vivid, propulsive prose against a backdrop of war on the edge of Europe.From the club's owners to its staff, players and supporters, via UK government intervention, dramatic peace talks and even a foul-play poisoning episode, Sanctioned chronicles ninety-five extraordinary days in English football.
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Contents
Prologue
On the afternoon of 2 March 2022, Roman Abramovich stepped quietly out of a luxury office in a converted Ottoman palace in Istanbul’s upmarket Besiktas district to make an urgent phone call. He had spent the day brokering meetings between Russian and Ukrainian government delegations in an ambitious bid for peace. Only six days had passed since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, but in that time Abramovich had been jet-setting across Europe on a delicate mediation mission. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was already at full-scale, but he still hoped a lengthy and gruesome campaign could be averted.
On another front, Abramovich saw only one option. After nineteen years of ownership, he had accepted he would have to sell his beloved Chelsea Football Club. That morning, two of his most trusted advisers had been dispatched back to London. By the time their plane landed at Heathrow Airport, he was ready to move.
Hardly on the London tarmac when his call came, Abramovich’s aides hurried to set up a makeshift office on the floor of Heathrow’s arrivals hall. With battery-drained laptop plugged into the only available power point, the pair rushed to compose a statement. viiiEven after the week’s extraordinary events, its contents would shock the world.
Only a handful of people knew Abramovich was even considering selling Chelsea. His closest staff still expected him to find a way to retain his ownership, perhaps by ceding central control of the Stamford Bridge club. He had always had suitors trying to buy Chelsea, and before this moment, he had rejected every single one.
His instructions had stunned the team at Heathrow. He had ordered them to draft a clear, unequivocal statement confirming that Chelsea was for sale, in full, with all proceeds to be donated to all victims of the Ukraine war.
Word quickly spread among Abramovich’s inner circle. Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck found himself shedding a quiet tear, struggling to reconcile the realities of war with the end of a Stamford Bridge dynasty. Abramovich had led Chelsea to nineteen major trophies since buying the club in 2003, in an unprecedented era of success. Now it was all over.
Buck would quickly turn his pragmatic mind to helping to manage the most public elite football club sale of all time. But in the moments after discovering Abramovich’s decision to sell, shock, reflection and sadness all combined in an emotional flash.
Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia was at home ill, suffering from Covid-19. Precious little could surprise someone who had long since developed into one of football’s most powerful decision-makers. Amid her Covid fever, however, Granovskaia had to perform a double-take on receiving word of the sale. The Russian-Canadian initially thought herself delirious through illness, until a second inspection confirmed the news.
Meanwhile, Abramovich’s two aides at the airport raced against time to meet his demands for a quick turnaround of the statement, ixstill tapping away sat on that unforgiving arrivals hall floor. In less than thirty minutes, the right words had been found and were duly double- and triple-checked. As fingers prepared to hit send on an email carrying a revelation to change the course of Premier League history, one turned to the other and asked, ‘Holy shit, are we really doing this?’
A slew of expletives echoed that astonishment some thirty-four miles north, at Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road stadium, where Chelsea’s coaches and players were preparing for their FA Cup fifth-round tie. With no advance warning, the news was a genuine shock, breaking as it did in the hour before kick-off. Agricultural language turned the touchline and the dressing room blue, as the full Chelsea contingent broke off from warm-up routines and pre-match planning, immediately questioning their futures.
As reality dawned, text messages and emails flooded the inboxes of senior Chelsea staff, who could not keep pace with the sheer volume, let alone comprehend the content. Some employees were fearing for their livelihoods, some were reduced to floods of tears, while others were simply too stunned to speak.
Abramovich, meanwhile, had to attend to other matters. Immediately after putting the phone down to his two advisers at Heathrow, he hopped from Istanbul to Poland, via Ankara. From there came a convoy drive into Ukraine ending in Kyiv, the sole route available into the war-torn country.
The journey was treacherous, the gunfire and rocket shelling of live warfare providing a deadly backdrop, the motorcade halted at regular intervals by roadblocks and military checkpoints en route to the Ukrainian capital.
At the same time, Chelsea’s stunned players took to the Kenilworth Road pitch, some 1,400 miles away in Luton. As the Blues xground out a 3–2 win, supporters, now well aware of the announcement, doggedly chanted Abramovich’s name from the stands.
The very next day, a world away from the UK media’s focus on the snap Chelsea sale, an attempt was made on Abramovich’s life. He came to late at night, unable to see and in intense, stinging pain, the skin peeling from his face and hands. Two colleagues had suffered the same symptoms and all three had to be rushed to a hospital outside Kyiv for emergency treatment. Independent experts would later say the men had been poisoned. They all made a relatively full recovery, but the scale of the danger in Abramovich’s mission was laid bare.
As doctors doused his eyes in that Ukrainian medical facility and his sight started to return, the picture was crystal clear that for both Abramovich and Chelsea nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter One
War on the Edge of Europe
23 FEBRUARY 2022
Roman Abramovich surveyed the damage at his estate in the south of France, indulging in a wistful lament for the passing of time. High winds had felled a 200-year-old tree, loved by the Abramovich family as much for its character as for its history. As he helped clear up the wreckage, he had no idea of the events in store across the few days ahead, neither their enormity nor their rapid escalation. If he was shocked when Russia invaded Ukraine the following day, he was equally surprised to be asked to join the embryonic efforts towards seeking peace.
After the invasion, the Ukrainian government wasted no time seeking sit-downs with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s closest personnel had been mining their most trusted contacts, trying to open lines of communication with Vladimir Putin’s administration. More than forty prominent Russians and Ukrainians were approached and asked to help set up a link to the Kremlin that could, at the very least, float the idea of both sides breaking bread in the same room. Abramovich not only numbered among that call list: he was the only one who agreed to help. 2
And so, less than twelve hours after Russia invaded Ukraine, on 25 February Abramovich flew to Poland for secret peace talks, just two days before Chelsea were due to face Liverpool at Wembley Stadium in the League Cup final. In other circumstances, Abramovich would have been making plans to jet in to London to take his seat among the 90,000 supporters at Wembley that Sunday. Instead, he was preparing to broker mediation summits. Amid the myriad brutalities of war, Abramovich was en route to Warsaw.
Touching down in the Polish capital, Abramovich and several of his most trusted advisers headed straight for a conference hotel on the outskirts of the city. After a lengthy wait in a faceless conference room running into multiple hours, the Ukrainians arrived and set out their stall.
The meeting was surprisingly short. The Ukrainians only needed to state their case and hope that Abramovich could deliver their message to Moscow. He left with Ukraine’s delegation agreed, and his role of unofficial go-between settled too. While willing to help, Abramovich’s role was merely to pass on the Ukrainian messages, unsure how those would be received back in Russia.
Despite the intensity of the war and the escalation of aggression and rhetoric, the response from both sides appeared extremely positive. The Russians were not just willing to engage in communications but also prepared to receive the Ukrainian proposals – so prepared, in fact, that the first official meeting happened just two days later.
Having only just reached Moscow to deliver the initial Ukrainian request, on 26 February, Abramovich was on the move again straight away. This time he was headed for Belarus. Putin and Zelensky would not talk directly, but both did immediately arrange for their negotiating teams to meet.
On Sunday 27 February, with Chelsea just hours from their 3League Cup final showdown with Liverpool, official delegations from Russia and Ukraine descended upon the springtime retreat of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who was to play host as well as mediator. Nestled in the Pripyat National Park, some thirty miles from the border with Ukraine, sits Lukashenko’s countryside residence. Enveloped in forest, a sprawling campus boasting a helipad and a sports complex would stage the first official talks between Russia and Ukraine, with peace on the agenda.
Two days after sitting down in secret with the Ukrainians in Warsaw, Abramovich and his team found themselves on hand at the Lukashenko compound, just outside the village of Liaskavichy.
Vladimir Medinsky, a senior adviser to Putin and former culture minister, headed a group of Russian envoys also comprising representatives from the ministries of foreign affairs and defence. Ukraine’s delegation was led by Davyd Arakhamia, the parliamentary leader of Zelensky’s political party. The then defence minister Oleksii Reznikov, future defence minister Rustem Umerov and presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak were also on hand.
Russia’s opening gambit was brutal in tone and content: the Moscow delegation demanded Ukraine’s total capitulation. The bullish starting point could easily have ended the entire endeavour, but both parties managed to finesse discussions to the point where communication lines were left open. All and sundry departed with plans to convene again, and soon, with Belarus primed for further hosting duties.
Abramovich was retained in his role too, asked to continue back-channelling efforts. Already committed to the cause, he was not about to back out. In a conflict changing by the hour, the two sides meeting once and agreeing to do so again represented significant progress. 4
• • •
Joe Ravitch was on holiday with his wife in Mexico when Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. The co-founder of renowned merchant bank Raine was refreshed and reinvigorated from just one of many days’ scuba diving when he returned to his hotel with designs solely on relaxing and mulling over dinner plans. The moment he checked his mobile phone, however, the rest of that February 2022 day’s itinerary took a drastic turn, because Ravitch had more than 100 missed calls and an even higher number of messages.
Abramovich was still some days away from resolving to sell Chelsea, but the turbulent situation on the Ukraine–Russia border left him on alert, making preparations to cover a raft of eventualities. The Blues owner’s most senior and trusted staff were doing what they always did in times of great potential change, battling to stay ahead of that curve. And so, Abramovich’s senior aides had spent a large chunk of time trying to track down Ravitch at his Mexico vacation bolthole. The fast-developing situation, with Russian troops again mobilising, left Abramovich’s staff acutely aware they had to prepare for all eventualities, from testing the market on a hypothetical deal to putting Chelsea fully up for official sale.
Ravitch’s instructions were clear and concise: start making early logistical plans for a potential sale process. The vastly experienced banker and broker had overseen Abramovich’s last toe-dip into the potential sale market in 2018 and 2019, when Todd Boehly had seriously explored a deal for the Blues, but that had never reached the latter stages of a negotiation. At that point, as with every other time Abramovich had considered selling, eventually he decided entirely against it.
This time, though, everything would be different, and the coming sale process and public circus would turn Ravitch into something 5of a household name, at least in footballing terms. He and partner Colin Neville tasked ten staff with full-time work on the Chelsea sale, even from the day Russia invaded Ukraine. As Abramovich’s staff were acutely aware, he would expect headway to have already been made by the time he would make the final call on the sale. That meant Raine getting the jump on the final decision, and their early tasks included sketching out a plan for the process itself and also setting up a virtual data room, the type of secure online portal that can house an investor pack through which interested parties can carry out due diligence.
A gregarious, animated character with a knowing flash in his eye and a winning smile, New York native Ravitch had spent sixteen years as a senior partner at Goldman Sachs, helping to broker deals like the sale of MGM Studios and the creation of NBA China. A Yale Law School graduate and the son of Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor of New York, Joe Ravitch founded Raine with Jeff Sine in 2009. Through personal contacts and robust acumen in brokering major deals, Raine steadily built its portfolio and client base, to the extent that a sporting figure of Abramovich’s calibre would turn to the US-based group as a first port of call for any kind of sale consideration.
Brokering the Chelsea sale would drive Ravitch and his colleagues to their professional limits, earn the firm millions and propel the bank to new heights in the world of sports club transactions. When Ravitch’s scuba diving trip was interrupted, though, the first steps towards building a sale process had to be tentative – and discreet.
• • •
Just days after Ravitch’s Mexico trip hit the buffers, at Chelsea’s 6training ground in Cobham, Surrey, head coach Thomas Tuchel met the media, ostensibly to preview that Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Liverpool. The articulate German expected to be quizzed on the war in Ukraine but had not planned the emotional monologue he delivered in response. Tuchel quickly found himself fielding a glut of questions on the future: his own, the club’s and that of Abramovich. He should have been talking about how to defeat Jurgen Klopp’s resurgent Liverpool, and how Chelsea were fixated on adding more silverware to the Club World Cup title they had won in Abu Dhabi just thirteen days earlier, finally completing the full set of global trophies. Instead, he broke with flat-bat protocol and opened up on a host of distractions affecting the west London club. A visibly moved Tuchel admitted that he and his players had been ‘clouded’ by events in Ukraine.
While Abramovich was waiting patiently in that plush Warsaw hotel conference room for Zelensky’s chief aides to arrive, Tuchel surprised even himself when he lamented the reality of war on the edge of Europe.
‘Maybe people understand that me as a coach or the players, we don’t have the insight into what is really going on,’ said Tuchel, amid one of the most obscure situations ever faced by an elite football manager. ‘At the moment we don’t feel responsible for all this. We feel that it is horrible and there can be no doubt about it. War in Europe was unthinkable for a long period. The impact is clear and the discussions have an impact.’
Where elite sports stars would normally insist on a tunnel-vision approach in a ruthless bid for success, Tuchel admitted Chelsea had lost that luxury. For the manager of the reigning Champions League, European Super Cup and Club World Cup winners to accept such distractions was no small beer. 7
‘It’s pretty unreal, it’s clouding our minds, it’s clouding excitement towards the final, and it brings huge uncertainty,’ said an agitated Tuchel, talking in Cobham’s bespoke press conference room. ‘Much more to all people and families who are actually more involved than us. And our best wishes and our regards and thoughts are obviously with them.’
Asked if he would try to switch off from those realities, Tuchel insisted that would be impossible. ‘I think you can’t,’ he said.
I think the situation is too big and it is not an isolated situation somewhere. It concerns Europe, it’s in Europe and we are part of Europe. We cannot say let’s put this to the side. It’s the opposite. We have to live with it right now. There is no running away from it. There is no shutting the doors and now we focus on football. We are still privileged to live in peace and freedom right here where we are right now. And we are still privileged to have a game of football, to have an emotional but peaceful environment with fans in the stadium.
This, the first of many erudite and impassioned speeches from Tuchel, struck a chord among the hushed assembled press. So animated and angular, Tuchel was all elbows and knees on the football touchline but so considered and thoughtful in front of a microphone, and when it mattered most.
Senior figures at Chelsea were doing their utmost to talk of business as usual, briefing media off the record that life had to go on as normal and that the club was not in any immediate threat of change. Tuchel’s candour on Chelsea’s unsettling links to the war left club communications staff uncomfortable. But this was a well-read, learned man in his fifties entirely sure of his own mind, 8and who had in effect paid with his job at Paris Saint-Germain for sticking to his principles when falling out with the club hierarchy.
Any such worries on Tuchel’s open dissection of Chelsea’s situation were not shared in the Abramovich camp. Firstly, Abramovich had far more pressing concerns, not least that sought-for peace. But secondly, Abramovich wanted coaches confident, articulate and brave enough to speak their minds in public, to communicate intimately and in detail with the club’s supporters. Abramovich had always adopted a default approach of keeping his own counsel on a public front in his Chelsea tenure, never involving himself in the politics of either football or the UK.
When the political climate would allow, Abramovich had always been on hand for Chelsea’s biggest triumphs. He had been in Lisbon for the 2021 Champions League final victory over Manchester City, and in Abu Dhabi earlier in February for that maiden Club World Cup success. Though the rest of English football’s great and good turned out in force at Wembley on Sunday 27 February for Chelsea’s Carabao Cup final clash with Liverpool, however, the Blues owner did not. A world away from his meetings with Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Belarus, Abramovich’s Chelsea took to the Wembley turf with thoughts of war in Europe firmly on their minds, but also hopes of taking yet another trophy back to west London.
The League Cup was meant to have accrued an almost second-tier status in the modern era, but here were two teams in full flow, at full strength – and managed by two full-throttle German super-coaches. If ever a manager cracked a club’s genetic code, it was Klopp, who had transformed Liverpool through tactical acumen and force of personality. Tuchel’s counterpart was every inch his equal, in world view, intellect and bold strategy.
Both teams tore into each other, laying on a compelling and 9chance-laden encounter that somehow ended goalless after extra time. The multi-billion-pound world of elite sport would grind on, regardless of whether it came to represent a cosy bubble or an important distraction from the terrors of war.
The 120-minute deadlock could only mean penalties. But after two hours without a net once rippling, suddenly neither side could miss – ten players from each team converted their spot-kicks in style. And there were moments when it appeared that the shoot-out might never end. With all the outfield players having taken and scored their penalties, the goalkeepers had to step out of the net and up to the ball. Reds goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher nervelessly converted his side’s eleventh spot-kick, heaping the pressure on his Chelsea counterpart, Kepa Arrizabalaga.
The Spain stopper was itching for penalty redemption, after refusing to be substituted in the 2019 Carabao Cup final in a bizarre spat with then boss Maurizio Sarri. Kepa had saved one spot kick in that match, but Manchester City had still prevailed 4–3 on penalties, leaving combustible Italian coach Sarri fuming, for once not due to his trademark smoking habit. Three years on from that peculiar clash with Sarri, Kepa could not seize his chance for atonement. Desperately searching for a definitive strike, he instead blazed the ball high over the bar as the most intense of sporting pressures took its toll. As Liverpool’s players hoisted the trophy high into the north London sky, Chelsea’s mood was about to darken significantly – and not because of losing a penalty shoot-out.
• • •
Abramovich was never in the business of public statements as Chelsea owner. That he would take the rarest of steps and put his own 10name to a quote spoke volumes on the far-reaching consequences of the war in Ukraine. On Saturday 26 February, Abramovich broke his silence, but he chose to address Chelsea’s situation rather than the conflict directly. Abramovich and staff were in Poland when they drafted a 110-word statement that proved an early, and unsuccessful, attempt to secure Chelsea’s future. He wanted to pass control of the Blues to the club’s foundation trustees.
During my nearly 20-year ownership of Chelsea FC, I have always viewed my role as a custodian of the club, whose job it is ensuring that we are as successful as we can be today, as well as build for the future, while also playing a positive role in our communities. I have always taken decisions with the club’s best interest at heart. I remain committed to these values. That is why I am today giving trustees of Chelsea’s charitable foundation the stewardship and care of Chelsea FC. I believe that currently they are in the best position to look after the interests of the club, players, staff, and fans.
As the statement reverberated around the world, a raft of questions was quickly raised, quietly from some of the Chelsea foundation trustees themselves but noisily from football’s punditry machine. Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck and women’s team manager Emma Hayes were among the trustees nominated to shoulder the ‘stewardship and care’ of the club, alongside Paul Ramos, John Devine, Piara Powar and Hugh Robertson.
While several of the six-strong group of trustees aired concerns behind the scenes, Abramovich would come under fire from ex-players like Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, who criticised Abramovich for not condemning Russia’s war. Some also questioned whether handing control of Chelsea to the club’s charitable 11foundation trustees would represent a sufficient break from Abramovich’s regime. Abramovich adopted a holding pattern, seeking to understand his Chelsea position in more detail. No one outside his inner circle had any idea of his peace mission, robbing his statement of crucial context. Critics chided Abramovich’s lack of comment on the war, but he was not interested in public statements and instead focused on his back-channelling. Any such equivocation was clearly unsustainable, however well-intentioned.
And so, the very next day, while Chelsea’s players were locked into that Carabao Cup final with Liverpool on 27 February, the club issued a far shorter follow-up statement. ‘The situation in Ukraine is horrific and devastating,’ read the second statement. ‘Chelsea FC’s thoughts are with everyone in Ukraine. Everyone at the club is praying for peace.’
And in just twenty-four words, a postscript was added to Abramovich’s statement. Abramovich again had his peace mission in mind when choosing not to put his own name to the addition. Once again, however, much of the public reaction was to question why there was no condemnation of the Russian aggression. Try as he might, Abramovich was struggling to uphold his rule of not mixing Chelsea with politics.
• • •
Todd Boehly fielded a call from long-time associate Joe Ravitch that moved quickly from catch-up pleasantries to a proposition that, in a flash, commanded both imagination and attention. Bringing Boehly up to full speed on the events that looked to have precipitated Chelsea’s sale, Ravitch asked whether the American financier and keen sports investor was still as interested in buying the Blues 12as he had been back in 2019. The answer was an overwhelming, immediate yes – at which point, before he was even off the phone, Boehly was already planning a bid in his mind.
If this was the spark to ignite an all-out bid to buy Chelsea, then the fuse had been set not just in 2018 and 2019, when Boehly first explored a potential deal for the Stamford Bridge club, but also at various points throughout the American billionaire’s life. A two-time conference champion wrestler in high school, Boehly then competed for a further two years in college – but football had actually been his first sporting love. Between the ages of five and fourteen he had featured in midfield for the McLean Lancers and the McLean Ambassadors, two travel teams in his hometown on the outskirts of Washington DC, before continuing when at Landon School in Maryland.
Boehly would even be pressed into emergency stints in goal, and only stopped playing football when the time came to focus exclusively on one sport, and his talents dictated that sport became wrestling. A business administration degree focusing on finance followed at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, in the final year of which he opted to head overseas. London was calling, and Boehly duly finished his degree at LSE, where he was also able to launch his finance career by working at Citibank.
That year in London saw his fixation for football revived, but it was when he co-founded the real estate platform Cain International in 2014, alongside British business magnate Jonathan Goldstein, that his passion for England’s national game was fully reignited. Prominent Tottenham fan Goldstein took Boehly to the old White Hart Lane, and rumblings about a potential sale of Spurs had piqued interest. Several exploratory conversations were had, but when they 13failed to develop into anything tangible, Boehly was still left with the overriding feeling that he wanted to invest in football – and in London.
After Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury in March 2018, the UK expelled record numbers of Russian diplomats amid increasingly tense geopolitical relations. A former Russian intelligence operative and UK double agent, Skripal had been the victim of foul play. The magnitude of the incident and its fallout left Abramovich and his team carrying out due diligence checks on the market as regards parties interested in potentially buying Chelsea. Boehly was asked by Raine to be a part of that review, and he had no hesitation in agreeing, highly prizing the allure of west London. As the groundwork progressed, Boehly started attending matches at Stamford Bridge, relishing the full experience and gaining valuable insight into the club’s workings. The more Boehly learned about Chelsea, the more he came to appreciate what Abramovich had achieved, in what he came to regard as a club-wide renaissance, across everything from the set-up at Cobham to what the modern iteration of the Blues stood for.
Boehly’s exposure to English football broadened even further across the same timeframe, through a loan he made to Sunderland. Ellis Short, who owned the Black Cats, was looking to sell the club and approached Boehly about a potential sale. Boehly explored the opportunity, but the more he examined the details, the more convinced he became of the power of London. As he considered England’s capital, he crystallised his opinion that Chelsea was London’s club, from its geography in the historic and fashionable west of the city to the club colours, the badge and even the gritty determination exuded by the team itself. Through his ownership share 14in MLB side the LA Dodgers, Boehly was experiencing first-hand how a big city can support a team, and this only served to boost his inclination to hold Chelsea in the highest esteem.
Boehly’s discussions with Raine and Chelsea ownership representatives in 2018 and 2019 never reached the stage of an official bid, with the talks taking place in a relaxed, low-stakes manner. It was always understood that Abramovich and his advisers were exploring all options and testing the market, in order to be prepared in case a sale would ultimately be desired. Comfortable with what proved a learning experience for both sides, especially with the lack of pressure and the high levels of growing mutual respect, Boehly was able to build relationships with Abramovich’s camp to sit alongside his already robust working partnership with Ravitch and Raine. In the fullness of time, Boehly would consider this a dress rehearsal for the 2022 sale process, but across 2018 and 2019, the discussions only served to raise his interest in the club and his ambitions for future Premier League ownership.
So when Boehly took Ravitch’s snap call at the tail-end of February 2022, there was no hesitation or doubt: he would be bidding for Chelsea, and he would go all-out to win. Boehly had spoken excitedly about Chelsea three years earlier to Mark Walter, the chief executive of Guggenheim Partners and one of his fellow Dodgers investors. His mind then turned to Hansjörg Wyss, remembering the Swiss billionaire’s passion for football, how he had grown up playing the sport and that his apartment had overlooked a football pitch. Both men were quickly as energised as Boehly about forming a consortium, so much so that by early March they were already building a partnership. So even when the sale was yet to be confirmed fully in public by Abramovich himself, Boehly, Walter, Wyss and Goldstein were already starting to circle the capital they felt 15would be required to pull off what would become a world-record sports franchise sale.
• • •
In the meantime, politics was coming for Abramovich. The Chelsea owner had felt UK authorities breathing down his neck to varying extents ever since the Skripal poisoning affair of 2018. But in Russia’s edge towards war with Ukraine, all subtlety evaporated on the winds of political change. In announcing a raft of sanctions to Parliament on Tuesday 22 February 2022, Prime Minister Boris Johnson falsely claimed that Abramovich had already fallen under such restrictive measures. Labour MP Chris Bryant then told Parliament on 24 February that he had obtained a leaked Home Office document from 2019 detailing alleged links between Abramovich and the Russian state, and alluding to ‘corrupt activity and practices’. Bryant suggested the government should freeze Abramovich’s UK assets, bar him from owning a British football club and even block him from basing himself in the country.
Spokespeople for Abramovich questioned Bryant’s actions, stating, ‘This document was never published, and nobody has been able to verify the content or context of this alleged document.’ Abramovich’s staff also added further background to Bryant’s Commons address. ‘The document which is referenced is named “HMG’s Russia strategy aimed at targeting illicit finance and malign activity”. This is not a document specifically aimed at Mr Abramovich. He has not been accused of anything and in fact has been able to visit the UK after the document was allegedly created.’
The outbreak of war had lowered the threshold for imposing sanctions, and British public support was overwhelmingly with 16Ukraine and their courageous leader Zelensky in the face of Russia’s aggression under the feared and erratic Putin.
The Tory government wanted to cripple the Russian war machine through economic constriction, manifesting as sanctions, but Johnson also craved any possible public approval boost. For all his bombast, Johnson was still weighed down greatly by the political after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lasting impacts of various lockdown stints – not to mention the ongoing Partygate scandal, which had engulfed his regime. A sequence of parties breaking the government’s own social distancing rules had threatened to floor Johnson and his leadership group. The Prime Minister was characterised by many close to him as determined to gain ground in the court of public opinion when it came to handling Britain’s response to the war in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government saw the tides and trends turning against Abramovich too, just when they were hoping to rely on his support in their greatest hour of need. The Ukrainian leadership was understood to have called Johnson to explain Abramovich’s efforts, requesting that the UK refrain from raising sanctions, suggesting these could prove counterproductive to the peace process.
The request was met with scepticism in Downing Street, especially as to the scope of Abramovich’s role. The Ukraine government insisted, though, that Abramovich was viewed as neutral and reliable in both Moscow and Kyiv, hence the two sides remaining agreeable to his involvement.
Seeing the writing on the wall from a UK government perspective, and through some back channels of their own, the Ukrainians ensured that news began to break on Abramovich’s early efforts towards peace talks.
Abramovich considered his mission would be best carried out 17in the shadows. But Ukraine’s leadership feared he could not maximise his impact without wider knowledge of his work. Alexander Rodnyansky had stepped back from his usual pursuit of directing Oscar-nominated documentaries to help Ukraine’s government secure high-profile go-betweens with Putin’s regime. It was Rodnyansky who broke the hushed silence on the negotiations, confirming on 28 February that Abramovich was indeed involved in the process. Rodnyansky spoke of President Zelensky’s relief and hopes that meaningful talks might achieve an early resolution.
In Ukraine, Abramovich was viewed through a new lens of respect for shouldering great personal risk in his attempts to broker talks. In London, the reception ran the full spectrum. At Stamford Bridge, loyal Chelsea fans still had club colours in mind when praising the owner who had transformed their entire footballing experience. At Westminster, politicians had angled the prism a full 180 degrees. Labour MPs Chris Bryant and Dame Margaret Hodge took to Twitter to question the sourcing and veracity of reports providing basic details of Abramovich’s new role.
Battle lines were being drawn in every arena, from the court of public opinion to football’s global contests, via the House of Commons and the halls of both the Kremlin and the Rada. Arching above it all, however, were very real and deadly fronts of actual war. As Russia had breached the lines of international diplomacy and security with its invasion, so too had the UK’s boundaries of football and politics been blurred like never before. As February turned to March, all parties involved crossed a line in the sand. 18
Chapter Two
Kenilworth Road
Minutes after Abramovich’s shock announcement that Chelsea was for sale, Petr Čech walked into the boardroom at Luton Town’s ageing Kenilworth Road stadium. Oblivious to the throwback surroundings and cramped facilities, Chelsea’s technical director was struck instead by the reception from his executive counterparts in the Luton hierarchy. Čech led the Chelsea delegation into Luton’s directors’ facilities on the evening of Wednesday 2 March 2022, in the final build-up to the Blues’ fifth-round FA Cup encounter, against a Championship club battling to match their lengthy past with a buoyant future.
As Čech entered the room, all eyes locked immediately onto his giant frame, all gazes fixed intently on the Stamford Bridge board member and his colleagues. The former Chelsea and Czech Republic goalkeeper had grown accustomed to being stared at, his 6ft 5in frame and footballing renown making him instantly recognisable to fans and the wider public alike. This was a man who had won the Champions League and four Premier League titles in a glittering eleven-year playing stint at Chelsea that also included winning the Europa League and three League Cups. He was a mainstay of20the Chelsea side that set a Premier League record low of fifteen goals conceded in the 2004–05 campaign. He was entirely used to receiving attention, and just as adept at dealing with it. But in the immediate aftermath of Abramovich’s revelation that he would sell the Blues, Chelsea were suddenly the world’s biggest sporting story, bar absolutely none.
So for anyone in that room of a Luton persuasion, it was impossible not to let their gaze linger a beat too long as a minimum – and in some cases to downright gawk. At least, that is how that boardroom entrance felt to Čech and company, who were stepping into the unknown in so many more ways than simply embarking on Chelsea’s first competitive trip to Luton since 1991. The game’s global foundations were still shaking as Čech and the rest of the Chelsea cohort met their Luton counterparts, whereupon they had no choice but to field a slew of questions about the future.
‘So what happens now? What is the process? How long will a sale take? What’s next for you all personally?’ All these enquiries and more had to be batted away, deftly and gently, for at that point, there were precious few answers.
Abramovich’s statement that Chelsea was for sale had been posted to the club’s website and social media channels at the very point that the Blues’ players were warming up for their last-sixteen FA Cup clash at Luton. Supporters filing into the ground stopped in their tracks as notifications landed on their phones. The assembled media, packing out a set of Luton facilities not so often accustomed to such numbers, were sent into a frenzy of filing words, recording new audio reports, and ripping up any existing plans on how to cover the night’s events.
Abramovich, for his part, had issued an unprecedented and deeply personal statement that laid bare his plans for Chelsea and 21his own hopes, even signing off his message solely with his given name.
I would like to address the speculation in media over the past few days in relation to my ownership of Chelsea FC. As I have stated before, I have always taken decisions with the club’s best interest at heart. In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the club, the fans, the employees, as well as the club’s sponsors and partners.
The sale of the club will not be fast-tracked but will follow due process. I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid. This has never been about business nor money for me, but about pure passion for the game and club. Moreover, I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine. This includes providing critical funds towards the urgent and immediate needs of victims, as well as supporting the long-term work of recovery.
Please know that this has been an incredibly difficult decision to make, and it pains me to part with the club in this manner. However, I do believe this is in the best interest of the club. I hope that I will be able to visit Stamford Bridge one last time to say goodbye to all of you in person. It has been a privilege of a lifetime to be part of Chelsea FC and I am proud of all our joint achievements. Chelsea Football Club and its supporters will always be in my heart. Thank you, Roman.
Čech and Chelsea’s other directors at Kenilworth Road could tell their Luton peers and anyone else they would meet that night that 22Abramovich meant every word of a statement that many considered bittersweet. They could talk of a determination that the sale should not be rushed, that all proceeds would be aimed to benefit all victims of Russia’s war in Ukraine. They could talk of Abramovich’s groundbreaking ownership, how he had transformed Chelsea, and the Premier League, in his nineteen years at the Stamford Bridge helm. They could not, however, talk with any certainty about how any further events would unfold.
The UK government and the European Union were both busily examining how to sanction Abramovich, aiming to prove his ability to influence President Putin in order to impose asset freezes and travel bans that could aid Ukraine’s war effort.
The sale of any major business, but especially a Premier League club, would only usually be announced on, or at least close to, completion. Geopolitics had conspired to remove any chance of following accepted protocol, and certainly any confidentiality: the sale was public knowledge before any process had even begun. This total inversion left staff at every level of Chelsea’s organisation in a spin.
If Čech and his fellow directors were swimming in uncertain seas then, the players, coaches and staff could have been forgiven for struggling to tread water amid an announcement that created a storm the like of which none of them had ever seen. The players had been particularly stunned by the news, and left in a state of confusion. Athletes crave the certainty of structure, the security of routine, and elite performance finds its bedrock in both.
The large contingent of homegrown Chelsea players, the highly prized and accomplished academy graduates, were among the most distressed. Senior stars and England internationals like Mason Mount had been connected to Chelsea for almost their whole lives. Talented forward Mount, born in 1999, had joined Chelsea 23aged seven and not only had he never looked back – he had never even known a Chelsea that had not been owned by Abramovich. Even Čech, who had already made his name with Sparta Prague and Rennes before joining Chelsea in 2004, had never had any first-hand experience of a Stamford Bridge set-up not operated by Abramovich.
Now, in the bowels of Luton’s cramped stadium, Čech seized a vital opportunity to address the team’s questions as best he could, delivering one straightforward message: for tonight, keep it simple.
One thing was certain: the Luton match would go ahead. Win this game, and everything – the uncertainty, the drama, the shock, the sadness – would feel instantly better. The reigning champions of Europe would be expected to roll over second-tier Luton without issue, and no quarter would be given if they failed. Čech told the Chelsea squad to control what they could and put the rest aside, certainly for the duration of the evening. Coaches, players and support staff were asked to do what they loved doing, what they did best, and to do that to the best of their ability.
There were no tears in the dressing room that night, perhaps mainly because of the collective shock. There was an immediate frustration and anger, however, and an overt feeling of discontent that both Čech and Chelsea’s coaches, led by the shrewd and savvy Tuchel, quickly looked to shape into a driving force.
As the minutes until kick-off ticked by, preparations became ever more match-focused, but many of those in the Kenilworth Road dressing room and on the pitch for the pre-match warm-ups recall a heady mix of autopilot preparation and latent, building indignation. The final messages before Chelsea took to the field to contest a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals echoed Čech’s initial advice: win the match, and everything will feel that little bit better. 24
• • •
Abramovich’s move to sell Chelsea had been every inch the lightning bolt that had struck the Blues players mere hours later in Luton, his decisiveness catching everyone involved unawares. The billionaire was already well ensconced in early attempts at back-channelling, aimed to try to create a platform for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. On the ground and on the move in Istanbul, he had spent the bulk of 2 March shuttling between luxury hotels in the swish Besiktas district, as well as offices of the Turkish government, all of which were housed in varying converted Ottoman palaces.
He had stepped away from those high-level and high-stakes concerns just long enough to act on his decision to sell Chelsea, by picking up the phone and ordering two of his closest aides to get to work drafting a statement.
After almost a week’s worth of delicate, nigh-on dangerous discussions with representatives of all the key players in this deadly Russia-Ukraine conflict, the advancing global, geopolitical and footballing events made it abundantly clear he could not extend his nineteen-year tenure of his beloved Chelsea. Never a man to waste time, he stuck to type, made the call and tasked his staff with a statement that would change so much so markedly, and forever; for himself, his family and friends, for Chelsea, for the Premier League and even for the wider world of football too.
In just half an hour, Abramovich’s aides had drafted that statement, the Chelsea owner had approved it personally, and then it was prepped for imminent publication.
While Cech had been dealing with many of the issues immediately arising from Abramovich’s seismic revelation at the Blues’ match in Luton, another Chelsea director was conspicuous by her absence, 25albeit entirely unwittingly. Senior director Granovskaia was ill, at home in west London suffering from Covid-19, and had spent the day in bed and battling to shake off a nasty sickness arising from the still-raging global pandemic.
Missing a match through illness would be nothing to relate in normal circumstances, but by the time the shock statement on the club sale had pinged around the world, her absence suddenly sat in an entirely new context. Immediately, Granovskaia worried that idle talk would suggest she had stayed away from Kenilworth Road on purpose and because of the planned club sale. But in fact, she had learned of the statement on Chelsea’s sale only in the final run-up to its public release.
Amid the flu-like symptoms of Covid, Granovskaia did a double take when checking her phone and reading the statement. While she had been all too aware that the mood music was potentially inching towards Abramovich making this decision, the speed of his final snap call meant she had not expected this move so quickly.
On first reading, she feared her illness was playing tricks on her, so she straightened herself out and looked at the statement again. No matter how many times she read it, the words and their meaning remained the same. This was the end of an era to end all eras.
Granovskaia gathered herself enough to speak to Abramovich on the phone, telling her long-time boss that not only did she agree with his decision, she also considered his aims to donate all proceeds to all victims of the conflict as an act of ultimate kindness. Even from her sick bed, one of the hardest working and shrewdest football administrators and negotiators was already mapping out a potential sale process, despite a slew of unknowns and amid a constantly changing wider geopolitical landscape.
Uncertainty had been building among staff at Chelsea, from the 26ticket office to the executive suites, ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Abramovich’s statement answered several questions, but posed countless more, and the initial reaction to the shock news had left many staff members in tears. Chairman Buck had numbered among those who did indeed shed a tear for the end of Abramovich’s glittering tenure, with no more trophies to add to the Club World Cup title, that had been claimed less than a month previously in Abu Dhabi.
The shock and immediate grief at Chelsea, whether from wider club employees at home, players, coaches and other staff at Luton, and even those connected to Abramovich and his family, gave way to a sense of immediate high alert in other realms. From the UK political scene to the global banking fraternity, via a coterie of already eager suitors, who had long since harboured aspirations and ambitions of owning the Blues, decision and policy makers across the world were all watching.
• • •
Kenilworth Road is a living, immersive museum piece, a still-beating homage to football’s hyper-local and community-focused past. Luton moved to the ground, in the Bury Park area of the Bedfordshire town, in 1905. To say that the club is intimately linked to the local area would be an understatement. Parts of the stadium are physically connected to the traditional homes that surround it, so much so that the away end’s Oak Stand entrance has been carved into a row of Victorian terraces, leading fans into the ground via a narrow alleyway passing directly under several flats.
Chelsea’s fifth-round FA Cup tie at Luton was littered with proverbial banana skins well before Abramovich’s staggering sale 27statement. But as supporters filed in through that retro Oak Stand gate, trudging up steps overlooked at distances of a few feet by bathroom or bedroom windows, their phones were dinging and pinging non-stop with notifications of the greatest impending change at Chelsea in more than a generation.
Rain earlier in the day had given way to glowering mist, swirling and catching the beams from the old-fashioned tower-style floodlights encircling the field. As the night air grew colder, so did the pre-match Chelsea mood – that is, until passionate, focused and driven boss Tuchel told his players to turn the frustration, uncertainty and upset on its head and channel it into a performance that could stand as a statement all of its own.
Čech, meanwhile, had invoked the spirit of Chelsea’s 2012 Champions League-winning side, of which he had been a key part, in asserting that the Blues have always been at their very best when written off. Just as interim boss Roberto Di Matteo had faced down low expectations when he led Chelsea to their maiden top-tier European triumph a decade earlier, so too would rivals, detractors and naysayers now line up, excitedly rubbing their hands in the hope that the Blues would fall hard, flat and fast.
