Sports investment companies, including those from the United States, have begun preparing proposals for the owner of the British football club Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, to buy the club amid the risk of sanctions against the businessman. This was reported by Bloomberg, citing sources.
According to the publication, investors are still waiting for clarity as to whether the Russian businessman will be included in the UK sanctions list. At the same time, one investment company has already sent its offers to buy the club. A Chelsea spokesman declined to comment to Bloomberg, as did Abramovich’s spokesperson at a Forbes request.
Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 for £140m. Before him, the London club had not won either the national championship or European competition for a long time. With the arrival of Abramovich, Chelsea became one of the giants of world football: he several times became the champion of the Europa League and the Champions League, and this month won the Club World Cup. The club is third in the UK Premier League table.
Chelsea are valued at around 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion), according to KPMG. The deal, if it goes through, will be one of the biggest in European football.
The ambiguity for investors is added by the statement of British Foreign Minister Liz Truss, who refused to rule out the possibility of including Abramovich in the sanctions list, the agency clarifies. British sanctions against Russian businessmen were announced this week, including brothers Boris and Igor Rotenberg and Gennady Timchenko. Abramovich was not on this list.
The fact that Abramovich was preparing to sell the football club under the threat of sanctions was reported by Bloomberg back in 2018. Then the businessman avoided being included in the sanctions list and the deal did not take place. As the agency clarified, then Abramovich rejected one offer to buy the club for $2.3 billion, as he wanted to receive at least £3 billion from the sale of the team.