Sky Sports provide update on Roman Abramovich’s situation at Chelsea

[James 5,201]

Roman Abramovich has no intention of selling Chelsea football club. Abramovich’s future as Chelsea owner has been under the spotlight. READ MORE: Sarri praises hat-trick hero – but targets improvement Sky Sports have provided a much-craved update on the situation surrounding Roman Abramovich at Stamford Bridge. Abramovich’s future as Chelsea owner has been under the […]

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[Vesper 28,864]

This article is just woefully ill-informed on the continuing geo-political situation vis-a-vis Russia versus the US/UK alliance.

You have 2 pincer movements that are going to continue to ratchet up tensions against Putin and his Russian oligarchs (of which Roman is one if the his closest allies).

First off, the American Democrats are almost assuredly going to take back the US House of Representatives and have a slight but not impossible shot at the Senate as well. They are on an all-out anti-Russian hysteria ever since the 2016 presidential election of Trump. Even with just the House under their control this is going to be ratcheted up to crazy levels.

The second part of the pincer movement will be Brexit, especially a hard Brexit. The UK will no longer have any mitigating force from the rest of Europe to reign in the anti-Russian hysteria from our end, starting with further tensions building over the dodgy Skripal case. The UK will also be desperate to further trade deals and will look to the US even more. The Trump administration will be under tremendous multi-variate pressure to really go after Russia harder so as to defext charges that they are Putin's puppets. Look at what has happened already with the medium range nuclear treaty, where Trump unilaterally pulled out of an agreement that goes back over 30 years. The US will demand the UK take an even more aggressive stance.

These 2 forces will more than likely combined to bring forth such hostility that I can absolutely foresee the UK government freezing all Russian assets in the UK, maybe even going so far as to attempt seizure. Hello CFC in lock-down mode.

Abramovich may also have all his other assets frozen or seized as well.

This is NOT some fantasy with no foundation in reality. This is something that very likely can and will happen.

Imagine if Roman sees this coming and DOES sell, only to find out all monies sent to him are now under global embargo. Another possibility is that the US and UK put on a series of super sanctions that make it impossible/illegal to deal with all Russian based firms and persons, no matter how tenuous the connections are.

I would feel a whole lot more at ease if the club was sold in full to safer ownership. We already are fucked on a new stadium, with the lack of revenues that is the result of no new modern stadium handcuffing us for years, maybe a  decade plus due to FFP regulations.

This is NOT a good situation. The author is just flat out wrong to claim this as some sort of wondrous news. It shows an extraordinarily myopic view of the complexities of the real geo-geo-political world.

Roman is already under the cosh, it is only going to get worse I am afraid.