As Kepa’s spot-kick flew over the crossbar and into the ecstatic Liverpool fans, bringing down the curtain on a breathless Carabao Cup Final, somewhere Roman Abramovich might have been shaking his head ruefully.
Abramovich has never dealt in lavish displays of emotion during his 19-year ownership of Chelsea, typically meeting their many successes and near misses with the same stoic applause and sheepish smile, at least in public.
The oligarch was not at Wembley last night and he likely has more pressing concerns than a missed chance to win a 19th major trophy with the Blues, amid the most turbulent week of his ownership.
Around 24 hours before kick-off, Abramovich released a 110-word statement, announcing that he would hand the “stewardship and care” of Chelsea to the six trustees of the club’s charitable foundation. The announcement was little more than a PR exercise: Abramovich still owns 100 per cent of Chelsea, via the holding company Fordstam Limited, and there has been no move to transfer any of his shares. But for the first time in nearly two decades, his hold on the club has appeared to slacken.
Since buying the Blues in 2003, he has reshaped English football, warping the financial landscape at the top of the game and, with it, the balance of power.
His fabulous wealth has ushered in an unparalleled era of success at Stamford Bridge and ensured the club has won three more major trophies than any other English team in the same period.
The Blues are not only the dominant power in London, but one of the leading clubs in Europe, overshadowing Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham, who all have more modern stadiums but cannot get close to matching their spending power.
His success has encouraged other oligarchs and investors to make the Premier League the No1 destination for investment and paved the way for club control by not just wealthy individuals but states, as in the cases of Manchester City and Newcastle. With Abramovich as part of the furniture, the Premier League have starved other elements of the English game of oxygen and dwarfed their equivalents on the continent.
Under Abramovich, who is worth around £10billion, Chelsea were one of the few clubs in European football to be insulated from the devastating financial impact of the pandemic and heading for a golden era of success on the back of their victories in the Champions League last season and Club World Cup this year.
Along with City, Paris Saint-Germain and commercial behemoths such as Manchester United, they stood alone at the summit of European football, a true super club with limitless ambition. Now, in the space of a few days, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has cast that rosy future into serious doubt.
Chelsea insist Abramovich does not want to sell and no bids will be passed to the owner by the trustees, should they agree to his plan to assume control.
But the sharks appear to be circling nonetheless, sensing potential weakness, and Bloomberg has reported that suitors are on “high alert”, with the Blues having already fielded one approach from an interested buyer this month.
Everything appears to hinge on whether the Chelsea owner will face sanctions from the UK Government, and his seemingly-hasty decision to hand control to the six trustees, without them first agreeing to the request, has prompted suggestions he is in a hurry to safeguard the club before the blows begin to land.
Chris Bryant, the MP who is leading the calls for Abramovich to face sanctions, has described his transfer of the club as “a classic Russian ruse to save himself from being sanctioned” and says he will not cease calls for action until Abramovich condemns Putin.
A 24-word statement released by Chelsea yesterday, on behalf of the club rather than Abramovich, referred to the “conflict in Ukraine”, suggesting a two-sided affair, and made no mention of Russia at all, perhaps indicating that the owner — who denies close links to Putin — retains his influence.
What happens next is unclear. Experts are split about the potential impact of possible sanctions on Chelsea, with scenarios ranging from the catastrophic — in which Abramovich demands the repaying of the £1.5bn he has ploughed into the club, plunging them into financial crisis — to the relatively benign. Whether a sanctioned individual would be free to sell his prized asset is one of the most searing, unanswered questions.
As Kepa, the world’s most expensive goalkeeper and therefore a symbol of Abramovich’s wealth, sent the ball over the bar, the concern for Chelsea was that the defeat to Liverpool could mark the beginning of the end of the relationship between English football and the man who has transformed both the club and the elite European game.
