To the Goverment and Roman will get the chance to appeal at some point.
If (as is likely) the appeal fails then who knows.
Roman Abramovich plans to sell Chelsea | SOLD for £4.25BN
- Thread starter Ali Dia
- Start date
If (as is likely) the appeal fails then who knows.
Why appeal? The sanctions will just be lifted at some point, it's not like his assets have been seized.
Normally when someone is sanctioned you cant take their assets. They are just frozen until it goes through the courts and proven they did something wrong which can take years. But since its a public asset they are releasing it for sale and probably holding on to the money until its either contested in court or what is likely to happen is that Abramovich will just let it go. He wont win in court and it will just cause him too much grief to try and get it back. No doubt the cash will just end up back in the pocket of the person who buys it + a few politicians. Thats why they will scramble for a distressed asset. It will be a bargain in the long run.
This is very inaccurate. Fighting this in court will only require a team of very well paid lawyers. And the burden of proof will be on the government.
This.
The notion that the money will be pocketed by the Government is wide of the mark, it will be in escrow and could sit there for years potentially and the notion it could end up back in the hands of the purchasers is just a fantasy. I would be concerned about the bidders if I were a Chelsea fan as most of the consortiums are businesses who are looking to make a profit and the easiest way to do that is to load the club up with debt and sell off a number of the highest value playing assets.
True. The EU lost a lot of cases and thats why they dont want to sanction because the Oligarchs have a sht load of cash for a sht load of top lawyers. However it still takes years and years and with the high profile of Russia you can bet the government wont let it happen. Can you imagine in a couple of years that Abramovich is back owning Chelsea? I doubt it. The more he fights the more they will try and fk him up. He has about 10 billion plus anyway. Writing off 2 billion and going to hide in Russia seems his best bet.
Roman will not own Chelsea again. He has already started to purchase a Turkish team. He will just recover his assets and then it will be seen if he makes good on donating the net profits to war victims. It would probably be less of a PR blow to losing a case to him if the UK just allows him to move the funds to the charity at some point in the future.
I wonder how all of this will affect the women's team at Chelsea, as they have been very reliant on Roman being as free and easy with the cash, if the new owners don't have the same appetite for women's football, then that could really hurt them, and result in us possibly having a chance to overtake them, if they start to suffer because of any sanctions, or a new owner, or group.
Be very interesting to hear their plans for the women's team once they do take over, whenever that might be.
Be very interesting to hear their plans for the women's team once they do take over, whenever that might be.
It appears the Saudis are out.
Good. It would honestly have been ridiculous to strip the club from Roman and then sell it to a group that are almost certainly linked in some way to the Saudi Arabian government, currently committing its own war crimes in Yemen. The Newcastle fiasco was bad enough.
Yeah from a moral perspective and fan rival perspective I'm glad the Saudis are out. Firstly because of their human rights track record, and secondly because I feel they'd be generous owners, and as a United fan would rather Chelsea be stuck with a bunch of American billionaires who don't care much for the sport, and see it as a cash cow, much like ours, Arsenal's and Liverpool's owners.
Forgive us if we don’t share the same sentiment. The ideal scenario would be someone who would improve upon the assets we have in place like the stadium but first and foremost, we would like an owner that strives for us to compete with the elite clubs like Roman did.
Ricketts and Ken Griffin bid on the shortlist. Was always going to be tbh, Griffin is the wealthiest individual out of all the bids, was never in doubt of them making the list
Woody Johnson bid turned away
Broughton, Boehly, and perhaps Centricus or Candy to follow,
Woody Johnson bid turned away
Broughton, Boehly, and perhaps Centricus or Candy to follow,
Its buyer market. Whatever Roman demands for his club, buyers deems what is worth they will pay that only. What Simon Jordan thought about how much chelsea worth doesn't matter.
Boehly offered roman 2.6 bn for chelsea even before he was sanctioned. So may be boehly knows what he is doing after all. Not only him but many others too like Ratcliffe.
At any moral price (like with RA)?
Yeah but that's the point, the club were not sanctioned then and Roman would have got his 1.5bn loan back without any pretence.
Whole different scenario.
The club according to financial experts is not worth that much.
If anything, the land is the most valuable. Players assets secondary.
Stadium isn't worth anything in comparison as it can't really be expanded.
So, it seems huge reliance on future USA streaming rights, to make it viable.
Apparently Saudis now consider the option of sponsoring chelsea team since they were not able to own chelsea they are exploring the possibility to sponsor chelsea. 
.
.Ricketts Out?
I generally agree that soccer's growth in America isn't solely because of a decline in tackle football but (at least here in California) I think it is a contributing factor, even if it's not the primary factor.
The large decrease in kids playing Pop Warner does probably lead to at least some kids playing youth soccer instead. Personally, I thought AYSO was great. That and the NASL did a tremendous job in introducing Americans to soccer and building long-lasting foundations for the sport that are now being built upon. It's easy to look back on the 70s-80s and critique from a 2020s point of view but for their time, they did a great job.
So according to the Financial Times the Saudi bid 'was not competitive and relied heavily on debt financing'. Can anyone with more knowledge explain this, how dissimilar is this to what the Glazers did to you lot?
Good news though as they are suggesting Boehly's bid is one of the ones shortlisted. Hopefully we can get back to some kind of normality soon.
Good news though as they are suggesting Boehly's bid is one of the ones shortlisted. Hopefully we can get back to some kind of normality soon.
A lot of people here in denial about the global brand level of Chelsea; the current European title holders and a power player in what will be by far the dominant league until a super league comes around. Add to that you have excellent infrastructure and possibly the best academy in the country. It’s located in the most top end area of London, and the real estate it sits on alone would be worth a small fortune.
People WANT them to be a distressed asset. That doesn’t make it true.
For the record, for non Americans, Boehly is a baseball owner. The Glazers are football owners. Two VERY different animals. Football owners like salary caps, guaranteed incomes, “being competitive” is enough to make them happy.
Baseball owners can spend their way to titles and World Series appearances. The Dodgers spend a LOT.
People WANT them to be a distressed asset. That doesn’t make it true.
For the record, for non Americans, Boehly is a baseball owner. The Glazers are football owners. Two VERY different animals. Football owners like salary caps, guaranteed incomes, “being competitive” is enough to make them happy.
Baseball owners can spend their way to titles and World Series appearances. The Dodgers spend a LOT.
Yeah but it's only Chelsea.
Don''t the Dodgers spend a lot because they also generate a lot as a franchise? They regularly feature quite highly in revenue tables. They strike me as the United of Baseball. Boehly and the rest of the ownership are obviously also in charge of generation revenue, so it's still their doing but I don't find the Dodgers' spending an apples to apples comparison with Chelsea's potential spending. He's a lot of people's favourite bidder though. Everything I've read about him fills me with confidence that he's going to take care of the club and run it properly.
So what? Chelsea doesn’t own it.
The freehold is owned by Chelsea Pitch Owners … and a key reason of why they were set up is to prevent it being built on.
Dodgers have one of the largest TV broadcast deals in baseball, which allows them to spend big when they want to. In addition, their stadium is usually near sellout to sporting and non-sporting events too, which helps them pay large salaries. But the Dodgers are also a strong analytical team across all levels (minor leagues/developmental teams and their major league team - Dodgers). And they can invest in the best people and most people (e.g. scouts). It helps that they have owners like Boehly with deep pockets, but they know an asset like Chelsea can make them a lot of money and it's something they would love to have as part of their investment/business portfolio.
Dodgers also conducted a huge renovation of the very old, but charming stadium (Dodgers Stadium), which has helped them generate more revenue.
Maybe, but no matter how good you might think this Boehly guy is, the days of having someone throwing money into the blackhole are gone, as any American that invests in a premiership club will be wanting a return for their money.
For United we couldn't have been anymore unlucky with our owners, most other clubs would have gone under with how they financed us, so I hope our time comes to have an owner like you are about to get, even if it's a massive downgrade on what Chelsea have become accustomed to.
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Thanks, yeah I figured they were generating a huge amount of revenue, which aids their spending. Boehly's group does seem like the best bet in terms of investing in the team, increasing the club's commercial revenue and doing something about the stadium.
Speaking of the analytical focus. A core part of Boehly's group is Danny Finkelstein who's heavily invested in data driven analytics in football.
Boehly group vs Sir Broughton group.
So Nick Candy is out. Ricketts family are out. Woody Johnson is out. The Saudis are out.
So Nick Candy is out. Ricketts family are out. Woody Johnson is out. The Saudis are out.
Boehly makes money out of the Dodgers, he is not pumping his own money in and takes a nice cut off the top and he will want to do the same with Chelsea. Roman was funding Chelsea to the tune of 900,000 per week out of his back pocket and there is simply not another owner out there like that. If you want to talk about denial it is those Chelsea supporters like yourself who seem to think it is going to be business as usual with new owners. I am not saying Chelsea are going to plummet out of the PL but they will have to adopt a very different financial model going forward.
Probably the best pair under the circumstances. I was well and truly in the status quo 're Ricketts and the thought of Woody scared the crap out of me.
This has been obvious from the moment Abramovich out the club up for sale. No other owner would walk in and spend the way Abramovich did. Boehly has spoken of his admiration of the Liverpool model, so we're probably looking at something like that.
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Maybe I'm being naive but I'd like to think the Tuchel factor and the squad (plus academy) we have will go a long way to mitigate the relative lack of spending, bit how Klopp himself does.
It’s going to take years for it to have a tangible impact. Plus Liverpool show if you spend well you can still compete and you’re starting from a higher base then Klopp. I don’t think Newcastle are going to be allowed to do a City either - FFP, the political scrutiny over the money and banning of sponsors linked to ownership is going to feck them up. I don’t see how they increase their revenue high enough to compete.
Yeah I think Tuchel has gone from arguably being the most expendable person in the club to being the most important person in the club. First order of business of whoever the new owners are must be to get Tuchel onside and give him all the support and assurances he needs.
Makes money?Sometimes, not always. Last year his revenue was less than just his player salaries. With baseball, to gauge an owners group, you look at how MUCH they want to make money. The lowly Orioles can make money with a payroll of 30 million and a horrible team. Being the LA Dodgers, he could sit back and print money just getting near the playoffs.
But instead he pushes 230 - 240 million a year in salaries alone. THE big spender on the block.
Not to mention he’s known for running excellent organizations. The people he’s already brought into the group, including one of the architects of Fenways Liverpool overhaul, have been great.
HE also isn’t the money guy. He’s done his homework and understands what the landscape looks like, and the money men working with him on Chelsea are bigger money hitters than the Dodger group.
And the days of us needing … did you guys say “dark money?” …. What a load. It’s money. Dark implies you don’t know the source and we know from REAL audits that’s not true. Any way, they are over? They were already over. People on here literally saying we needed 900 mil injections every few years ? Maybe that’s all wishful thinking, but none of it is true. Without Roman we are less likely to make sudden impulse splurges like Torres it Lukaku, but I would argue that easily makes us a better team, not worse. And even with those insane layouts we would have been net moneymakers 5 of the last 5 years without Covid hitting.
Chelsea isn’t where a lot of you see it anymore.
And people implying Ronan will “get his money”? He. Literally. Offered. To. Let. The. Trust. Give. It. To. Charity.
The crooked UK Tory’s are the ones obsessed with it.
Opposing teams will be able to sell tickets to our home games and we won’t. The womens team CAN sell tickets… tell me again how this was to thwart Russia and not a punitive attack on the club itself?
What a crock.
But Roman won’t be the one coming after your government with Lawyers. You guys lied about a respected, global, multinational company being involved in genocide, an invasion, and war crimes. You have done serious harm just to get at an owner you didn’t like, even though he had already agreed to sell. They will be coming after a LOT more than 3billion
Well said.
It's great that the Saudi bid has been refused and yiu are right about the war crimes in Yemen.
But let's not forget that the City owners the UAE are equal partners with Saudi in their war crime coalition that destroys innocent vulnerable Yemeni children and adults.
Mansour needs to be held responsible too and both he and the Newcastle owners need barring from football.