On the evening of the 26th local time, Chelsea boss Abramovich announced that he had handed over the "management" of the football club to the trustee of his charitable foundation.
On Friday, Chelsea boss Tuchel just said the current situation in Ukraine would create "huge uncertainty" for the club. As a result, on Saturday afternoon, team owner Abramovich issued a rare statement saying that he had entrusted the club to the Chelsea Charitable Foundation for management. For a while, the English media was also a little confused, but after a few hours of delay, the mainstream media led by the BBC believed that this was not a sign that the Russian rich would really sell Chelsea.
Abu's statement was succinct and the English media mostly excerpted it in its entirety: "In the almost 20 years that I have been at the helm of Chelsea, I have always positioned my role as the guardian of the club and my job is to ensure that we are as successful as we are today, and to focus on the future, while allowing the team to play an active role in the community." I have always made decisions based on the best interests of the club. I remain committed to upholding this value, which is why I have decided today to delegate the responsibility of leading and managing the club to the Chelsea Charitable Foundation. I believe for now, the Chelsea Charitable Foundation is the best option for caring for clubs, players, staff and fans. ”
In fact, the prospects for Chelsea and Abramovich have already begun in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and were immediately discussed by the British government and the media. At the same time that some football associations and players have said that they will launch a boycott against Russia, the Premier League club owned by the Russian consortium cannot be ignored in such a big storm and turmoil. First of all, there were already Labour MPs in the British Parliament who proposed to impose tougher sanctions on Abu outside the country, and since Chelsea was regarded as the personal property of Russians, it was suggested that the knife should start with Abu, the most famous personal asset. The English media began to play the possibility that Chelsea clubs would be changed hands by Abu, and also exposed that the capital market has valued the team at 3 billion pounds and circled some potential buyers for Chelsea.
Just earlier on Saturday, the Times reported that if the British government imposed actual sanctions on Abu, the Russian plutocrats might first demand that Chelsea repay the £1.5 billion in the account, a move that would lead to the team facing bankruptcy. The debt is held by Abu's BVI-incorporated company Camberley International, which has long lent to Chelsea's parent company, Fordstam, a capital injection model that has continued since 2010. In the years prior to that, Abu had used a middleman called Chelsea Limited to complete the funding process in the form of a third party. It wasn't until around May 2010 that the English media found that chelsea Ltd's debts had been fully transferred to the current Fordstam name, and the total debt at that time was 726 million pounds, and this amount was 25 million pounds more than when it was last updated, which was exactly the cost of Chelsea's previous fires of Scolari and his coaching staff.
Following the Guardian's coverage of Chelsea's debt problems at the time, the club issued a statement insisting that the team was financially balanced and that there was no such huge debt involving the company or Abu himself. But the English media remained unmoved, insisting that the series of funds issued by Abu to the team's parent company was interest-free borrowing, but as long as the Russian rich were willing and formally notified 18 months in advance, the company must repay the debt unconditionally. This is also considered to be a foreshadowing of Abu's retirement for his whole body at that time, so the English media was not surprised by the rumor that Abu asked him about the team's debt, which also confirmed their previous reports, but what the Russian rich man's statement intended, they were a little uncertain.
Unlike the previous rapid response to various breaking news, this time the BBC-led English media gave their own judgment after 1-2 hours. They believe Abu will still not seek to sell Chelsea at this stage, and the other £1.5 billion debt, the Russian billionaire has not contacted the club's parent company for any form of notice to repay.
Kieran Maguire, an English football finance expert who has been following up on the matter, said it was now confusing how the Chelsea Foundation, which currently owns the club, would operate. At the same time, he believes that Abu's move is not completely to decouple himself from Chelsea in fact. This is a precautionary measure for the Russian plutocrat to deal with a situation that may be unfavorable to him: "Because if the British government really wants to impose sanctions on Abu in the form of confiscation of his property, Chelsea will be regarded as part of his personal property in the UK." Now that the team is entrusted to the Foundation, he is nominally decoupled from the team, and if something new arises, his legal team will argue that Chelsea is not his personal property now and therefore the British government has no right to confiscate the team as his property. ”
Wen | Liu Chuan
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