Amid the chaos in Ukraine and the rush for everyone to divest any Russian links or securities, a little drama has been playing out in West London, as Chelsea Football Club has found itself at the center of some of the controversy. The club is owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, about whom Labour MPs have been asking why he's not being sanctioned. Abramovich claims no links to Russia's president Vladimir Putin, though certain reports have linked him with the Kremlin, so it's fair to say that things are a little murky there.
When the war started, Abramovich said he'd transfer the day-to-day running of Chelsea to the trustees of its charitable foundation, a move that was scotched when said trustees said they wouldn't do it, and that it fell afoul of regulations. He then said he'd sell the club, with the proceeds going to benefit the victims of the war (though that phrasing implies that it won't only go to Ukrainians).
In the wake of the news Abramovich has been held up alongside the more recent sports washers that he helped to enable, like the Saudi acquisition of Newcastle and the Abu Dhabi acquisition of Manchester City. Certainly his acquisition of Chelsea led the way for other oligarchs, whether Russian or not, to buy their way into European football, so it's interesting to reflect on his time in charge of the club.
I remember when he bought Chelsea back in 2003, and the club immediately used its riches to buy essentially an entirely new team. The manager at the time was Claudio Ranieri, who came in a respectable second but was still sacked for not winning any trophies (and for not being José Mourinho). Because nothing like that had ever happened, there was a lot of excitement around Chelsea and what they might achieve with their new wealth.
In the short term, they certainly broke the effective duopoly on winning the Premier League, previously held by Manchester United and Arsenal, and won every domestic title available. It took a few years, but they also eventually won the Champions League and the Europa League, and most recently the Club World Cup.
The success came with high expectations: the club has had 15 managers in the time that Abramovich has owned Chelsea, not counting caretakers who took charge for one or two matches. That number does count both of Mourinho's terms as manager, and both of Guus Hiddink's terms as interim manager, since they came mid-season and involved significant chunks of their respective seasons. That's almost one new manager per season for the 18 years that Abramovich has owned the club.
In terms of honors, the club won the Premier League five times; the FA Cup five times; the League Cup three times; and the Champions League and Europa League twice each; as well as the Club World Cup, which makes for a trophy each year on average. The club is out of this year's League Cup and unlikely to win the league, but is still in the FA Cup and the Champions League, so has a chance to win at least two more trophies this season.
It's clear that Abramovich's money helped buy a big chunk of Chelsea's success, though I also think he brought in good coaches who really stamped an identity on the club. A lot of the iconic Chelsea players from the first Mourinho era were already there, but Mourinho undeniably molded them into an impressive unit, which survived long after his own third-season implosion. But of course, money doesn't just buy success, it also buys expertise.
In terms of accusations of sports washing, it's hard to put Abramovich on the same level as the owners of Newcastle, Manchester City or Paris St-Germain, though he certainly opened the door for rich owners to swoop in to buy a club and turn it around. You could argue that Manchester City have taken that same model and done it even better than Chelsea (City have won 13 trophies since being bought by Abu Dhabi in 2008, and have had just four long-term managers under that ownership), while other clubs have had rich owners but far less on-field success. Certainly, if discounting the war in Ukraine, Abramovich would likely still pass any version of the fit-and-proper persons test that's been changed to keep out people who are known to have ordered the murder of journalists.
At any rate, when he bought Chelsea in 2003 there was no concept of sports washing, and if anything I thought at the time he was trying to safeguard his money in case Putin ever got sick of him. It was just seen as the rise of Russia after a few years of post-Soviet chaos, and one that heralded the imminent primacy of Russian football in Europe. That didn't happen either, of course.
Looking to the future, I wouldn't be surprised if Abramovich is done with football after this. He'd already largely given over the running of the club to others, intervening only when someone needed to be sacked, so even if Russian owners can ever buy clubs in the rest of Europe again, Abramovich will probably turn to other interests.
As for Chelsea, a Swiss-US consortium appears to be poised to buy the club, but it's an open question as to whether they'll be as successful under the new owners. Abramovich's Chelsea was successful because he didn't seem to mind how much the club was costing him, as long as it delivered trophies (particularly the Champions League) and signed players he wanted, like Ukraine's Andriy Shevchenko. The new breed of super-clubs, like Manchester City, seem to be even more intent on maintaining stability at their clubs, which has been key to their success, and presumably the new owners will want to do that. A key indicator of upcoming chaos will be if they try to sack the manager, Thomas Tuchel, despite him being one of the most desired coaches in Europe.
At the very least, it'll be interesting to see how many of the great players of the Abramovich era continue to be associated with the club after he leaves. Certainly they'll stick around if the titles keep coming.
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