Tactics and Transfers: Sanctions, the Premier League and Chelsea’s future
1. Sanctions
Where I draw umbrage in this issue is with the concept of sanctions against a private business in a country outside the one in question. Yes, Abramovich owns the Blues, he is Russian and Russia is waging a war against Ukraine, but he is not the only person involved with Chelsea Football Club. Thousands of employees of the organization will have their lives damaged by the sanctions as they are imposed currently. Hundreds of local west London businesses will be impacted by the sanctions. All of this following what we can only hope was the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
These sanctions stink of political posturing by politicians who aren’t actually doing anything to help with the crisis at hand and let us all be reminded of what that crisis is. It is not a Russian oligarch stealing from Russia, it is a rogue Russian politician waging war against Ukraine. The United Kingdom’s sudden condemnation of oligarchs is hypocritical at best. It has always allowed wealthy foreign individuals to have freedom within the country.
The UK has long had a shady reputation amongst the less-than-savory and wealthy of the world as a place you could buy your freedom. The famous Investor Visa—more often described as the Golden Visa—was a system created to allow ultimate freedom and British protection to those wealthy individuals who could guarantee through their own personal wealth an injection of cash into the economy of the United Kingdom. This has been used by countless villains to buy their way out of the countries they’re worried about being persecuted by and into British society.
In fact, since the practice was formalized in 2008, some 11,000 “Investor Visas” have been granted by the Home Office, according to the Guardian. The majority going to, you guessed it, Chinese and Russian businessmen. The United Kingdom’s posturing on this issue when its morality has been for sale for a long time is a ridiculous notion. It has been the Swiss with British accents and cold beaches for a long time, and everybody knew it. This rush to claim a moral high ground that was surrendered years ago is pathetic.
Of course, we are in uncharted territory at the moment and Mr. Abramovich’s status does put particular interest on him. All true. His huge stake in Russian businesses that have been tied to the war effort is not something that can be looked over or ignored, but how does destroying thousands of lives of ordinary British taxpaying voters punish him? At the time of writing, Abramovich’s jet had landed in Tel Aviv, Israel four hours ago. I bet there was still champagne and caviar on his plane. Meanwhile, the matchday stewards who have rent to pay and are being let go by the club struggling for money right now might feel differently.
The British government had no issue taking his money to support NHS staff, did it? It had no issue taking his money to fund the Holocaust wing of the Imperial War Museum. There are several conservative party members of the British government with direct links to Abramovich’s funding, as well. The strange pretending that everyone is doing that we didn’t know about Abramovich’s past the whole time is interesting. We always knew the majority of his wealth came from Russian companies after the break-up of the USSR. He displayed an interest in assimilating into British society and with his money, the Russian was able to do a very good job of it while everybody looked the other way.
Why would the British government simply not then ban him from leaving the country, accessing any funds outside it or having any contact with people outside the UK? It already took the money, it’s already in England and in the pockets of thousands of people. Is it going to take his investment out of the country in every respect when that’s literally what it brought him into the country to do? It didn’t care where the money came from, so long as he spent it in Britain at the time.