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

Someone

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Need someone to investigate the glazers for any potential connections to Putin. Are they republican? Something could be found here.
 

Coops73

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Someone is gonna get a bargain if they have the patience to wait long enough.
It probably depends on how long they have to wait before the club is seized as an asset, I haven’t got a clue how this shizzle works but I presume if it is seized as an asset the government will sell it off cheap to get it off their hands, so will interested parties just wait until/ if this happens? and I’m assuming there is a real possibility it will because Roman wouldn’t be selling otherwise.
 

The Brown Bull

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Stinks to high heaven.
Why hasn’t the UK Govt. moved to freeze/seize the assets of the Oligarchs?
 

choccy77

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Sounds like money laundering to me.

Using dirty money, buys club and dumps a ton of money into it, he walks away with clean money (far less than he put in) and the rest goes to "charities"

Clearly zero red flags.
 

RobinLFC

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He’s not though. He’ll sell the club for >£1.5 billion and the debt will be repaid in full.
Not sure how it works in England but the loans would still be on Chelsea’s books though in that case? If he wants to recoup them by means of the price he gets for the club, he’d need to do an unconditional waiver of debt which would be seen as an abnormal or benevolent advantage (i.e. not something an independent party would do under market terms) at the level of Chelsea and a taxable income for the club.

A potential buyer wouldn’t want shareholder loans on the books when they take over the club I’d imagine. Or what they could do is include the promise to repay any remaining shareholder loans in the SPA maybe, some stuff like that. Again, not sure how it works in England.
 

padr81

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Speak to the resident Newcastle fans mate. That's your oil comrade now.
A Chelsea fan who's club built on oil complaining about oil clubs, you couldn't make it up. WeePot it is from now on. Glass houses and all that.
Also the word comrade gave me a chuckle.

Thank God most your fans aren't so silly.
 

Rado_N

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A Chelsea fan who's club built on oil complaining about oil clubs, you couldn't make it up. WeePot it is from now on. Glass houses and all that.
Also the word comrade gave me a chuckle.

Thank God most your fans aren't so silly.
Not sure if serious…
 

Lord Zlatan

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What is the tax implications for Chelsea by suddenly having £1.5 billion suddenly written off. Surely these become a gift?
 

MDFC Manager

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Not sure how it works in England but the loans would still be on Chelsea’s books though in that case? If he wants to recoup them by means of the price he gets for the club, he’d need to do an unconditional waiver of debt which would be seen as an abnormal or benevolent advantage (i.e. not something an independent party would do under market terms) at the level of Chelsea and a taxable income for the club.

A potential buyer wouldn’t want shareholder loans on the books when they take over the club I’d imagine. Or what they could do is include the promise to repay any remaining shareholder loans in the SPA maybe, some stuff like that. Again, not sure how it works in England.
The sale price would be including the loans owed surely. There's no way Roman sells for 2bn and is still owed the loan amount.
 

choccy77

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What is the tax implications for Chelsea by suddenly having £1.5 billion suddenly written off. Surely these become a gift?
I'm sure the Premier League will ignore their rulebook on such matters, once Boris has a word with them.

This is highly dodgy and how is it fair to other clubs, they don't get their loans or debts wiped off, its not allowed I believe under FFP rules and maybe even others.
 

choccy77

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Who forgives 1.5 billion debt? Doesn't make any sense.
Exactly, it's highly irregular and alarm bells are ringing.

I worked for an international Bank for 13 years and we were constantly doing tests and checks on Money Laundering, this ranks up at the top.
 

RobinLFC

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The sale price would be including the loans owed surely. There's no way Roman sells for 2bn and is still owed the loan amount.
But then they’d be paying £500m for the club with the included engagement to repay existing shareholder loans. My point was that they wouldn’t pay £2b and the loans would suddenly be gone from the books. If they pay £2b to Abramovich for the club, the loans keep existing. But yeah I think that would indeed be the likely solution.
 

choccy77

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The sale price takes care of that surely. It's not like some financial institution is forgiving the loan
Its not how his statement is worded.

He is selling Chelsea to make a big profit.

He then says he will waive the loan to the club.

At any other time, he would still be looking for same amount for the club, as that is its value and then no doubt would have some kind of restructure for loan repayment additionally.
 

padr81

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Said it before but Romans not gonna ask for that money back. He'll sell Chelsea for well over £2bn and make a sweet profit to go with his spending. He won't need the call in the loans.

Not only that but regardless of what kind of a person he is, he's the owner who cares/cared most about their club of all the big 6 arguably in the league. Mansour, FSG, Glazers etc.. don't have near the level of interest he has/had
 

Pearl.Jam

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Well so far he has tried to broker peace and promised what must be a significant amount of money to victims of the war. If that’s failure then you must adjust your life perspective
so he’s now Henry Kissinger and Bill Gates ? Feck off, he’s crook, pure and simple
 

Chief123

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Haven’t they made the most losses this recent financial year?

Either way their fans have been used to the way RA funnelled money in to the club. I don’t think they’re quite prepared for how a sustainable football clubs books need to look like. The new owners might have decent chunk of change but they’ll be playing by a whole new set of rules now.

The bright spot is the playing squad is in relatively good shape, so a drop off wouldn’t be immediate.
I don’t think some of the chelsea fans are grasping how much things will change. For example, the Lukaku transfer in the summer never happens unless it’s Roman Abram. No one pays £100m for a 28/29 year old with no resale value. They would never have signed Torres for £50m at the time either.
 

MBan

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Decent start, however i will hold off any positive talk of this until its done. I just dont trust someone with so much illicit financial gains to be so 'generous'.

Concerning to see "all victims of the war in Ukraine" which can potentially go to Russian soldiers and their families. Very broad and ambigious statement.
 

Roger

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There is a massive disparity in terms of infrastructure and profile between the clubs. I think your point stands if the aim is to rescue a distressed asset, but for a buyer for whom profit isn't the main objective Chelsea are orders of magnitude more appealing.
The sale price would be including the loans owed surely. There's no way Roman sells for 2bn and is still owed the loan amount.
Unless he finds a way of selling it back to himself. Time for Roman to put the 632 new UK businesses linked to Russian owners to good use.
 

TheMagicFoolBus

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I don’t think some of the chelsea fans are grasping how much things will change. For example, the Lukaku transfer in the summer never happens unless it’s Roman Abram. No one pays £100m for a 28/29 year old with no resale value. They would never have signed Torres for £50m at the time either.
We'd be far better off had neither of those signings happened!

If the rumours of Boechy from the Dodgers' consortium are accurate and we're run like they are, that's encouraging. They combine a sophisticated data-driven approach with huge financial muscle - and they have a history of going all-in for the right players. I'd much rather we spent £150m on Haaland instead of £100m on Lukaku last summer - that's the type of move the Dodgers have made (e.g. trading for Mookie Betts, trading for Max Scherzer, signing Trevor Bauer even if it didn't work out, etc.).
 

Roger

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Exactly, it's highly irregular and alarm bells are ringing.

I worked for an international Bank for 13 years and we were constantly doing tests and checks on Money Laundering, this ranks up at the top.
I worked in the banking sector for about the same amount of time as you, in financial crime. The problem with laundered money is that once integration has been achieved it is a bit like tying to remove the raw eggs from a baked cake.
 

choccy77

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I worked in the banking sector for about the same amount of time as you, in financial crime. The problem with laundered money is that once integration has been achieved it is a bit like tying to remove the raw eggs from a baked cake.
I still say, that despite all the internal crap we had about ML and sanctions etc, all the really rich people would avoid these because the heads of the banks are in it with them.

Look at HSBC and Barclays in more recent times, all guilty of helping launder money.
 

galwayfa

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Sorry but can someone do the maths for dummies, he bought club, transferred it to a charity and said he wouldn't draw down on loan of a couple billion, it wasn't right what he done but how are Chelsea worse off in my very less knowckledge of this, Chelsea are better off, a loan wiped off, and what they have,
 

Roger

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I still say, that despite all the internal crap we had about ML and sanctions etc, all the really rich people would avoid these because the heads of the banks are in it with them.

Look at HSBC and Barclays in more recent times, all guilty of helping launder money.
And JP Morgan Chase and many others involving trillions of pounds.