Funds from the sale of the Chelsea football club, owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, have been frozen in a bank account in the UK for 2 years. This is reported by The Guardian, reports EP.
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The Chelsea football club, owned by the Russian oligarch Abramovich, was sold back in 2022 for 2.5 billion pounds, with an agreement that this money would be used to help victims of the war in Ukraine.
But until 2024, the British government was never able to reach an agreement with the former owner of Chelsea on the use of funds from the sale. For now they are blocked on an account belonging to Abramovich's company Fordstam.
People close to Abramovich reportedly claim that the agreement was that the money should go to “all victims of the conflict in Ukraine and its consequences”, while ministers insisted that it should be spent exclusively on humanitarian purposes in Ukraine.
By the words “to all victims of the conflict,” Abramovich’s representatives apparently also mean the occupied territories controlled by Russia.
Members of the House of Lords Committee on European Affairs called the inability of government ministers “incomprehensible” Rishi Sunak to spend the money on Ukraine almost two years after the sale was agreed.
- In May 2022, Abramovich sold Chelsea FC to an American consortium led by Todd Boel. In January 2023, it was reported that the British government was close to transferring £2.3 billion proceeds from the sale of Chelsea FC by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to a fund for Ukraine, but would have to obtain final EU approval.