Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club, has become the latest and most high-profile Russian oligarch to be sanctioned in Britain in punishment for the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The sanctions mean that all of the billionaire’s U.K. assets, including his treasured English Premier League club and multimillion pound property portfolio, will be frozen with immediate effect. The Putin confidante will no longer be allowed to travel to the U.K. or carry out any financial transactions with individuals or companies based in Britain.
Just last week, Abramovich announced he was selling Chelsea—the club he’s bankrolled to success since 2003—as countries around the world cracked down on Russian assets. That multi-billion sale will no longer go ahead as planned, with an unnamed British government source telling The Times: “He will not get a penny from the sale of the club.”
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The sanctions will also have a more direct effect on his beloved club.
Chelsea, the current world champions, will no longer be able to sell tickets to games, so only existing season ticket holders will be able to attend its upcoming fixtures. Its merchandise store will be closed, the club won’t be able to spend more than $26,000 on travel to each game, and it will be impossible to buy or sell players or negotiate new contracts.
In its announcement, the British government cited Abramovich’s decades-long “close relationship” with President Vladimir Putin to justify its sanctions. It said Putin had helped Abramovich build his extreme wealth with “preferential treatment and concessions” for years, and the sanctions are designed to stop him from making further profit in Britain.
The Chelsea owner was one of seven oligarchs to be hit in the fresh round of British sanctions alongside fellow notorious Russian billionaires Igor Sechin and Oleg Deripaska. Britain said the seven all have close links to Putin and an estimated collective net worth nearly $20 billion.
“There can be no safe havens for those who have supported Putin’s vicious assault on Ukraine,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement announcing his latest anti-Putin moves. “Today’s sanctions are the latest step in the U.K.’s unwavering support for the Ukrainian people. We will be ruthless in pursuing those who enable the killing of civilians, destruction of hospitals and illegal occupation of sovereign allies.”
The oligarchs sanctioned by Britain also have links to property portfolios in the United States. Abramovich offloaded $92.3 million of New York City real estate to his ex-wife, Darya Zhukova, as part of an apparent settlement in 2018. According to The New York Times, Abramovich had been in the process of combining four townhouses on 75th Street into a mega-mansion when he transferred them into the name of his former partner.
Deripaska, best known in the U.S. for his ties Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman who was convicted of fraud, has been repeatedly sanctioned by the U.S. federal government, and the FBI raided a Washington mansion linked to the Putin ally in October last year.
