Roman Abramovich plans to sell Chelsea | SOLD for £4.25BN

[Classical Mechanic]

Is negative attention part of the deal?

Because I for one didn't know much about how oligarchs made their money until Roman bought Chelsea. I'm sure he would have preferred I remained ignorant on the actual source of his wealth.

That's the problem with this term, it's so vague. Has any concrete connection been made between an act of sportswashing and an observed delta in benefit to the alleged sportswasher?

It's a form of soft power which has been studied.

https://www.britishcouncil.org/research-policy-insight/insight-articles/soft-power-today

If you're talking about Abramovich in particular, he wasn't really laundering an image to increase an international profile with the aim of receiving investment like the oil states are. He was imbedding himself in a high profile foreign cultural institution to make any assassination by Putin more complicated. The murder of the owner of Chelsea football club would've been a much bigger story with greater diplomatic fallout than if he was one of the unknown Russian billionaires living in London that have been murdered. Of course if this did or even would've protected him from Putin we'll never know.

 

[Stacks]

He is panicking. technically the UK government might not touch him but he doesn't want to take the risk. thought he was a decent owner all things said and done but deep down I feel Chelsea was merely an overseas asset that was protected from Putin/Russia's grasp. Looks like this may have been the purpose.

 

[Baxter]

Is anyone going to pay what he wants and clear the $1.5bn they owe to him?

Their own accounts say they’re reliant on Abramovich. Who’d want to take on a money losing machine?

 

[Ali Dia]

Chelsea was just another layer of protection for Roman from the international community.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Yes and the debt!

He did, but it had a lot of debt I think. So he's buying it for however much debt it had. That's my layman's understanding of it anyway.

Thanks, makes sense!

 

[Dumbstar]

Is anyone going to pay what he wants and clear the $1.5bn they owe to him?

Their own accounts say they’re reliant on Abramovich. Who’d want to take on a money losing machine?

A Glazer MkII might consider it.

 

[Cheech Wizard]

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This screams Gillette and Hicks. Tough times for Chelsea ahead if one has to ask around his mates first.

 

[Klopper76]

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[WeePat]

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Aren't the Dodgers the biggest spenders in the baseball?

 

[sangria]

All words are made up

Again, the reasoning behind this sportswashing doesn't make sense. I already have my way in your real estate, your shopping... You sell me weapons to bomb my neighbors, you vacation in my cities... And I need to buy a football club so I can get 20,000 fans to argue I'm a good guy online, despite the fact that potentially attracts more negative attention to me?

Ignoring the fact that this term is predominantly applied to Middle East/Russian dictators... Have never heard of US military endorsement and bombardment of US sport events as sportswashing but what would you expect for a term that has little meaning?

You can get a good idea of which clubs are sportswashing by looking at whether or not their fans defend their owners. Most fans either don't care, or are critical of their owners, even over seemingly trivial things that have no impact outside their club and the sport. Those clubs aren't sportswashing. Then you have clubs whose fans defend their owners on issues outside their club and even the sport. Those clubs are sportswashing.

 

[Zaphod2319]

You can get a good idea of which clubs are sportswashing by looking at whether or not their fans defend their owners. Most fans either don't care, or are critical of their owners, even over seemingly trivial things that have no impact outside their club and the sport. Those clubs aren't sportswashing. Then you have clubs whose fans defend their owners on issues outside their club and even the sport. Those clubs are sportswashing.

I think you will find most Chelsea fans are critical of Roman outside of the club. I have said before what he does in Israel very much concerns me. You will not find many that question his commitment to the club and growing the club in both winning and the academy.

 

[Zaphod2319]

Aren't the Dodgers the biggest spenders in the baseball?

Yes and opponent fans are always saying they try to buy championships.

 

[adexkola]

It's a form of soft power which has been studied.

https://www.britishcouncil.org/research-policy-insight/insight-articles/soft-power-today

If you're talking about Abramovich in particular, he wasn't really laundering an image to increase an international profile with the aim of receiving investment like the oil states are. He was imbedding himself in a high profile foreign cultural institution to make any assassination by Putin more complicated. The murder of the owner of Chelsea football club would've been a much bigger story with greater diplomatic fallout than if he was one of the unknown Russian billionaires living in London that have been murdered. Of course if this did or even would've protected him from Putin we'll never know.

Thank you for the link.

Soft power is very hard to project without some sort of legitimacy granted by the projectee. For example, Iran and North Korea and Cuba are virtually incapable of projecting soft power in the West, because all channels for doing so have been blocked through various form of sanctions.

The likes of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar... all have been granted legitimacy to one extent or another by the UK government and the European Union, to the extent that they can attempt to project soft power through cultural institutions (of which sport is one channel), but that legitimacy is the sticking point for me.

As this episode with Ukraine has shown, soft power doesn't really do you good once legitimacy is stripped away. Sponsorships by Russian institutions have been canceled. They're being kicked out of international sport. If Saudi Arabia was to invade, instead of Yemen, an innocent country like Israel, it's sponsorship of Newcastle would do it no good and they probably would be forced to sell. Which begs the question as to what benefit sportswashing brings beyond financial means (taking the link you provided as fact, the needle doesn't really move that much for Qatar/Saudi, and if it did, that's your sustainability argument right there for FFP).

Finally, you've admitted the term sportswashing doesn't really apply to Abramovich... Which is one of my main points, that it's not a term that has a clear definition and is applied consistently, if major outlets/journalists can incorrectly use the term. Money laundering has a clear definition and it's very simple to identify. Sportswashing is deliberately ambiguous.

 

[::sonny::]

It’s over for roman

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[adexkola]

You can get a good idea of which clubs are sportswashing by looking at whether or not their fans defend their owners. Most fans either don't care, or are critical of their owners, even over seemingly trivial things that have no impact outside their club and the sport. Those clubs aren't sportswashing. Then you have clubs whose fans defend their owners on issues outside their club and even the sport. Those clubs are sportswashing.

This doesn't make sense. I thought countries sportwash, not clubs. What is Chelsea sportswashing?

See why I say it's a poor term?

 

[Rajiztar]

It's over. Another Arab prince wants to buy chelseafc.He is one of the billionaires approached by Roman appointed consortium who wanted to buy European club and shown green signal to possibly able to buy current world and European champions.

 

[UpWithRivers]

All words are made up

Again, the reasoning behind this sportswashing doesn't make sense. I already have my way in your real estate, your shopping... You sell me weapons to bomb my neighbors, you vacation in my cities... And I need to buy a football club so I can get 20,000 fans to argue I'm a good guy online, despite the fact that potentially attracts more negative attention to me?

Ignoring the fact that this term is predominantly applied to Middle East/Russian dictators... Have never heard of US military endorsement and bombardment of US sport events as sportswashing but what would you expect for a term that has little meaning?

There is a difference walking into a room/negotiating position/dinner with the queen whatever as Roman Abramovich rich dude from Russia or Roman Ambramovich rich dude from Russia that owns nice houses in London and Roman Abramovich owner of Chelsea. The latter brings you prestige, opens doors to powerful people, allows you to intertwine your companies by sponsorships etc, influence a fan base of millions -(the friggin Russian Flag flies at Stamford Bridge!), gives you an asset that is not so easily accessed by the regime you stole the money from and on and on and on. Why do you think these Oligarchs are buying into sport? Shts and giggles? For the love of the game? Its not investment because there is a sht load of better investments - plus they dont need the money.

 

[WeePat]

Yes and opponent fans are always saying they try to buy championships.

His PR game seems strong

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[Ayoba]

is this good or bad for chelsea? I don't know?

 

[TheReligion]

is this good or bad for chelsea? I don't know?

Pretty bad

 

[WeePat]

is this good or bad for chelsea? I don't know?

Who knows. We'll just have to wait and see. It seems certain that the Abramovich style funding is over for Chelsea, but whether the new owners are terrible leeches or just decent businessman who want to win remains to be seen.

 

[duffer]

is this good or bad for chelsea? I don't know?

Pretty, pretty good.

 

[adexkola]

There is a difference walking into a room/negotiating position/dinner with the queen whatever as Roman Abramovich rich dude from Russia or Roman Ambramovich rich dude from Russia that owns nice houses in London and Roman Abramovich owner of Chelsea. The latter brings you prestige, opens doors to powerful people, allows you to intertwine your companies by sponsorships etc, influence a fan base of millions -(the friggin Russian Flag flies at Stamford Bridge!), gives you an asset that is not so easily accessed by the regime you stole the money from and on and on and on. Why do you think these Oligarchs are buying into sport? Shts and giggles? For the love of the game? Its not investment because there is a sht load of better investments - plus they dont need the money.

The very fact that Abramovich is being pressured to sell Chelsea shows how useless all of that has been.

Why do I think Oligarchs are buying into sport? The same reason why they buy yachts? Because they like the idea of owning a yacht/football club? I'm not the one assigning a reason behind Abramovich's every purchase, but rumor has it he went for Chelsea after watching Real Madrid vs United in 2003. It's possible he did it being a criminal mastermind. Or he bought it for the same reason rich people buy stuff in general?

 

[Rozay]

Can’t all of these owners just feck off? Including ours.

 

[WeePat]

Official statement

Says he will not ask for any loans to be repaid.

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[el3mel]

Regardless, this is really an end of an era. Feels like Chelsea won't be the same without him all honestly.

 

[UpWithRivers]

The very fact that Abramovich is being pressured to sell Chelsea shows how useless all of that has been.

Why do I think Oligarchs are buying into sport? The same reason why they buy yachts? Because they like the idea of owning a yacht/football club? I'm not the one assigning a reason behind Abramovich's every purchase, but rumor has it he went for Chelsea after watching Real Madrid vs United in 2003. It's possible he did it being a criminal mastermind. Or he bought it for the same reason rich people buy stuff in general?

He's done ok out of it for 20 years! He couldn't exactly foresee the events that unfolded recently.

But you are right that it might have just been for shts and giggles I guess. Have loads of cash why not buy a football team. Its probably for several reasons but yeah because he can was probably one of them. But sports washing (yeah its a stupid sht name) is across a lot of sports. Olympics etc. Its generally still done for the reasons I first said. Maybe some of the owners just did it for the love of the game for all I know but still a lot of it has to do with nefarious interests

 

[Zaphod2319]

No loans to the club to be repaid all proceeds of the sell to go to the victims of Ukraine

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[Wednesday at Stoke]

I think the fact that he is looking to sell is bad news in general as it means he is foreseeing sanctions that last a few years, which means the inner knowledge in the oligarch community is to prepare for a Russian aggression that won’t end for a few years at least.

 

[wr8_utd]

Can't imagine Putin would be too happy with all proceeds of a sale to go to Ukraine?

 

[FootyGirl88]

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[cyberman]

No Rice this summer. I’m guessing no transfers until the new owners are in

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Can't imagine Putin would be too happy with all proceeds of a sale to go to Ukraine?

All proceeds go to “victims of the war in Ukraine”. So presumably families of Russian casualties as well?

The “net proceeds” bit is interesting too. How does that work when you’re selling a club that owes 1.5 billion quid? He says he’s not interested in money owed but what does that do to the balance sheets when the club is sold? Bound to be some smoke and mirrors here.

 

[pratyush_utd]

No loans to the club to be repaid all proceeds of the sell to go to the victims of Ukraine

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This makes the sale at 2b much easier as loans would have made it more than 3b.

I wonder if net proceed means after taking into account purchase price + loans since he isnt asking that from new buyers

 

[Zoo]

Hopefully Tuchel walks now.

 

[P-Ro]

 

[marktan]

No loans to the club to be repaid all proceeds of the sell to go to the victims of Ukraine

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Good sentiments but I can't help be a little skeptical. His PR team have been very good over the last week, they came out with the he's helping negotiating a peace treaty which turned out to be a load of BS.

I sincerely doubt if he makes £1b in profit (after the debt of £1.5b) he's going to donate that to Ukraine. Probably kicking the can down the road and trying to gain some good PR to avert sanctions as he tried to do with putting the club under the control of the charity, which turned out to also be BS since the charity had no ability to take on the club.

People need to remember that these are the words of a PR team from a guy that stole billions, he has no reason or enforceable way to actually give any of that money to charity.

 

[tomaldinho1]

This doesn't make sense. I thought countries sportwash, not clubs. What is Chelsea sportswashing?

See why I say it's a poor term?

Roman used Chelsea/his general London investments to move his image away from Russia and Putin (see how aggressively he attacks any suggestion of Putin links over the years) and whilst it’s not sportswashing in the same way Abu Dhabi or Saudi do it, the fact he has not been sanctioned yet kind of proves it’s worked.

 

[RedTiger]

All good things come to an end mate. At least the club has been run to be self sufficient in the past few years, so there shouldn't be a drop in your quality.

 

[Orc]

No Rice this summer. I’m guessing no transfers until the new owners are in

One of the prospective new owners is part owner of the Dodgers and Lakers. Also a huge Hollywood entertainment guy apparently. These are teams that use the Real Madrid Galactico model.

So I don’t think we’re going to become Tottenham or Arsenal overnight like many opposition fans are hoping.