When Chelsea’s players kicked off their Champions League campaign on Wednesday, they wore shirts proudly emblazoned with two stars, one for each time the club has lifted football’s most prestigious club trophy. The twin triumphs count among 21 honours collected during the free-spending tenure of Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who bought the club in 2003 and injected it with his oil and gas billions.
Last week, the Football Association issued 74 charges against Chelsea relating to alleged financial irregularities during that trophy-laden era. The club must respond to the charges by Friday. A parallel Premier League investigation has yet to conclude. The allegations are understood to relate partly to payments by offshore companies owned by Abramovich to agents involved in Chelsea transfers, as well as to controversial “third-party” investments in footballers. Details of the transactions were first revealed by the Guardian, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and international partners in 2023 after a months-long investigation.
