Chelsea risk Premier League expulsion as their takeover could become a Putin-Johnson row

If Roman Abramovich now wants his £1.6bn loan paid back to agree the sale of the Chelsea, then the club is facing its biggest crisis since the 1987 ‘Save the Bridge’ campaign, when Stamford Bridge was under threat of being turned into luxury flats by property developers Marler Estates.

Abramovich initially claimed he would write off the £1.6bn he had put into the club to ease the sale process. But now it is said he fears that may not be possible because of UK Government sanctions. Which is an interesting take, because the UK Government can amend the terms of the sanctions as and when it chooses, what with them writing the law on this.

So it’s clearly perfectly possible to allow Abramovich to write off the loan and designate a Government ESCROW account into which the money for the sale of the club can be paid. Could it be that a better explanation is that Abramovich doesn’t actually now want to write off the loan?

Put it this way: UK government sanctions make it clear that Abramovich is effectively President Putin’s man. If you believe that, then, in essence, Chelsea is a Russian state asset. Is Vladimir Putin, currently talking up the threat of nuclear war, really going to allow £2.5billion of Russian assets vanish into the hands of the UK Government to distribute as they see fit, with much of it ending up supporting Ukraine?

There was always a fear among those close to the sale process that Abramovich could scupper a deal at the last minute. And these new conditions, which only emerged last week, look very much like a huge spanner in the works.

The deal suggested is that the loan, which is owed to a holding company called Fordstam (controlled by Abramovich), should now be paid to Camberley International Investments, which appears to be linked to Abramovich. That just isn’t going to happen if the UK Government is good to its word. They have pledged that not a single pound from the sale process can end up in Abramovich’s pocket.

And so we have a stand off and, just to add some tension, the clock is ticking. Chelsea are only operating as club because the UK Government carved them out of sanctions until May 31st so that they could finish the season. Without Government permission, they cannot function: they can’t sell tickets, pay players or recruit players. They can’t even stage matches. They would essentially be liquidated and unable to play at any level, until some kind of deal can be sorted.

Maybe the Government will just extend the special licence? They could, but on June 8th the Premier League has its AGM and will constitute the league for 2022-23. If Chelsea aren’t licensed by then, they can’t take up their place in next season’s Premier League, nor can they be nominated by the FA as a Champions League or Europa League representative. And they can only be licensed with Government permission, which will only happen if they are sold.

Add into the mix the fact that the Financial Times is reporting that current chairman Bruce Buck and managing director Marina Granovskaia will continue at the club if the Todd Boehly takes over. Julian Knight, Conservative MP and chairman of the DCMS Select Committee, which is the department overseeing the sale, says that would be an ‘unsettling development.’

And that the bizarre, last-minute Jim Ratcliffe bid, which has received lots of fanfare but which isn’t technically part of the process, seemed peculiarly designed to appease Abramovich.

When Abramovich initially said he would sell Chelsea, before he was sanctioned, he said he wanted to set up foundation ‘for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine.’ Victims of war was of course a suitably vague phrase which could conceivably mean rebuilding the Russian-controlled Donbas region in Ukraine.

The Ratcliffe bid mimicked Abramovich’s language, saying that it wanted proceeds to go to a ‘Charitable Trust to support victims of the war’ But as both Ratcliffe and Abramovich know, they don’t get to choose where the money goes so it’s meaningless to pledge what is going to happen to it.

Unless Abramovich is plotting to pressure the Government to let him set up some kind of charitable organisation? That way he could spend the rest of his life demonstrating he is was in fact a generous humanitarian rather than a Putin crony, who gained his wealth in what his own lawyer described as an ‘easy-to-rig auction.’

In essence, it doesn’t really matter who buys the club. If they can’t get the deal done because Abramovich and the UK Government are in deadlock, then Chelsea are in jeopardy.

Of course, with three and half weeks to go, the expectation is that someone will back down. But if this becomes, by proxy, a blinking contest between Putin and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, then it’s very hard to see either of them nuancing positions.