Chelsea Football Club could go 'bankrupt' if the government were to impose sanctions on Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, according to finance experts.
It was revealed in parliament that the government had privately named him as a person of interest in 2019, and have, therefore, been urged to seize or freeze Abramovich's assets in the UK given his links to the Russian states 'public association with corrupt activity and practices'.
Experts have speculated that Abramovich could demand to Chelsea that he is owed by the Premier League giants.
Kieran Maguire, a football finance lecturer at Liverpool University, claims Abramovich may use his ownership as an exertion of force against any threat of British government sanctions against him.
It has been reported that new owners could well be considering buying the club, and with this in mind, it could be the right time for the Blues' Russian owner to sell Chelsea.
Interested parties include the chairman of Ineos chemicals group, Sir Jim Ratcliffe. He has previously inquired about purchasing the club but had barked at the price quoted.
Business network Bloomberg, has since claimed that American buyers may be interested.
So far, Abramovich has not faced any sanctions from the UK, despite Boris Johnson previously falsely stating the billionaire was 'already facing sanctions'.
Chelsea take on Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley on Sunday, and Labour MP Chris Bryant, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, told The Times.
'People should turn up at the next Chelsea match with Ukraine flags to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine', he said.
Following Bryant's comments the MP has been targeted by Russian bots after he used parliamentary privilege to reveal a leaked Home Office document that named Abramovich as among individuals 'linked to illicit finance and malign activity' in the UK.
Fodstam, a private company, it technically who Chelsea are owned by and were set up by the Russian billionaire.
The company through sponsorship and commercial revenue, player sales and income from winning the Champions League last year and Club World Cup this month, is broadly breaking even in its day-to-day running.
Maguire believes its long-term future could be on the line if Abramovich's assets were seized or frozen.
'If he feels he is being made a scapegoat for the activities of Putin then the worst-case scenario is he tries to call in the loan.
'Then we've got a crisis. He and Putin could argue that it is the British government that has destroyed Chelsea Football Club.'
Maguire predicted that there may be 'a lot of misrepresentation and accusations made from all parties if the British government does go down this route'.
'But I suspect this government will not want to upset football fans as we have a populist government. I suspect Chelsea's legal team would be going through all the options', he added.
Finance lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, Dr Rob Wilson, has suggested such sanctions could mean Abramovich walks away from Chelsea, putting the club's future at risk.
'If the government do seize the assets, in which case they seize Chelsea, that is probably for him a bit of a final straw,' Wilson said.
'He would likely try to walk away from the club, which would create a problem for Chelsea because it would have to be sold or go out of business. Who would buy Chelsea with a £2 billion loan?'.
Chelsea Football Club declined to comment. Abramovich's representative did not respond to a request for comment.
There have even been calls to sever business links, with British businessmen connected with Russian companies coming under pressure to disavow them after the invasion of Ukraine, Ben Ellery writes.
George Osborne, the former chancellor, Lord Barker of Battle and Lord Daresbury have all been urged to break off their connections by the Labour MP Bryant. The MP also said anything else was 'granting tacit consent to the criminal invasion'.
Barker, the former UK energy minister, is chairman of the aluminium producer En+, whose biggest shareholder is the sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Barker is said to have been paid up to £4million for his help in convincing Donald Trump to end sanctions on a holding company owned by Deripaska.
Osborne, once hosted by Deripaska on his yacht, secured En+ as a client for the investment bank he joined after leaving the Daresbury is on the board at Credit Bank of Moscow and is said to have played a key role in listings of Evraz, a mining company with a major operation in Russia.