Former Man United defender and now well known pundit Gary Neville believes Roman Abramovich's Chelsea situation will have a wider 'ownership' impact on the Premier League going forward into the future.
Abramovich's soon-to-be 19-year tenure of the west Londoners will be over with the Raine Group finally releasing the list of the four-five groups that made it into the next round of negotiations which could be concluded by the end of April. Todd Boehly and the Ricketts Group are joined on Raine's shortlist with the likes of Sir Martin Broughton's consortium and Stephen Pagliuca.
Whilst all focus has switched from the Russian oligarch to the potential candidates vying for the helm at Stamford Bridge, Abramovich himself has been able to detach from the situation with Raine handling the takeover dealings with senior members of Chelsea like Bruce Buck and Marina Granovskia.
READ MORE: New Chelsea stadium: Boehly, Ricketts and Broughton's Stamford Bridge plans following takeover
Regardless of what happens next regarding Abramovich, who will still be of interest to many Blues fans who will still have fond memories of him in the future, Neville has been speaking about the impact of his Chelsea sale and what it means for the Premier League.
"In terms of Chelsea, it isn't just about Chelsea this actually, it's a wider point now on football ownership in this country," he outlined on the third edition of the Overlap's Fan Debate. "We didn't react the same to Derby or Bury or even Saudi money coming in even though they made it tougher for them to come in. But, I think we now have a huge issue emerging of basically the idea that football clubs are being bought by wealth from wrong states, businessmen in America who see huge opportunities to exploit the clubs.
"We've benefitted enormously from that for the last 20 years. Roman Abramovich has built a competitive Chelsea which has added to the Premier League like you wouldn't believe but at what cost? We now know his association with Vladimir Putin which we did initially ignore and slept walk. None of us in this room have been shouting about it for the last 15-20 years. We've accepted it because we've benefited from it. We've watched football and have a competitive league that is now admired across the world.
"But there is no doubt that our league is being abused and used and there's a big moment coming on the back of what has happened with Abramovich and I think it is going to be a lot harder to get into English football in the future. I think fans are going to have a higher hurdle to get over in terms of what they now expect of their owners."
It's important to note that Neville's certainty on a potential Abramovich and Putin relationship is vehemently denied by the owner who has been under the cosh in recent weeks by the UK Government and the EU.
