The adventure that Roman Abramovich undertook in January 2003 came to an end. Chelsea, that team that hovered at the top of the table, without taking the last bite, became a great one in Europe. In the champion of the continent and the world. And Roman left. Not through the front door. Not as a winner. He left because his relations with Vladimir Putin and with Russia are too strong to continue running a football club.
The Russian oligarch, one of the first examples of the arrival of foreign and billionaire capital to the Premier, is leaving because the war that his country has declared on Ukraine forces him to withdraw.
He first made the decision to hide and leave the administration in the hands of the club’s foundation, but this Wednesday he had to confirm that the club is for sale. It will never be Abramovich’s Chelsea again.
From that July 2003 in which Abramovich bought Chelsea for about 140 million pounds from businessman Ken Bates until just a few weeks ago, when the club was proclaimed champion of the Club World Cup for the first time in its history, almost 19 years have passed and 18 titles: more than any other English team in this period.
Abramovich arrived to revolutionize and inject capital. And he did it from the first moment. In his first season, he left more than 100 million pounds to incorporate footballers such as Claude Makelelé, Hernán Crespo, Juan Sebastián Verón, Damien Duff, Adrian Mutu and Joe Cole.
The team made an immediate qualitative leap and finished second in the Premier, only behind Arsenal of the Invincibles, and climbed to the semifinals of a Champions League that was won by the man who changed Chelsea’s destiny, José Mourinho.
After a season with Claudio Ranieri, Abramovich dispatched the Italian and brought in Mourinho, who had just won the UEFA and the Champions League in consecutive years (2003 and 2004) with Porto.
The impact was immediate. Chelsea won the second English league in its history, the first in 50 years. They also won the League Cup and returned to the Champions League semi-finals, thanks to players like Didier Drogba, who came from Marseille, Arjen Roben, from PSV, and the Portuguese clan of Ricardo Carvalho, Paulo Ferreira and Tiago. A certain Petr Cech also appeared at Stamford Bridge, who is still at the club as sporting director to this day.
The titles did not stop. In 2005-2006 they won another league, in 2006-2007, the League Cup and the FA Cup. They signed Michael Essien, Michael Ballack, Andriy Sevchenko, Ashley Cole… Chelsea were already one of the the best teams in Europe, but the Mourinho cycle ran out in the middle of the 2007-2008 campaign, which ended with the first Champions League final in ‘Blue’ history.
Of bitter memory for John Terry’s slip on the penalty that the ‘Orejona’ would have given to Abramovich and that Manchester United finally took.
A thorn that took four years to remove, when in a dour Allianz Arena and against the favorites of Bayern Munich, Drogba equalized Thomas Müller’s goal in the last minutes, with a masterful header, and gave Chelsea the title on penalties . His career, with the Champions League as a midfielder, is the great photo of the Abramovich era.
The titles never stopped and there were two Europa Leagues, one of them with Rafa Benítez. There was also the consecration of César Azpilicueta as captain, the sale of Eden Hazard for 100 million euros, three more Premiers (2010, 2015 and 2017), the hookups with Antonio Conte, the praised management of Marina Granovskaia… And the problems .
Abramovich’s decline as a manager began in 2018, when the poisonings of a Russian double agent and his daughter intensified relations between the United Kingdom and Russia.
Roman decided not to renew his investor visa and, if he traveled to the country, he would do so with an Israeli passport. Since then, Abramovich has barely visited London once, for a family matter, and has only attended Stamford Bridge once, in November 2021.
Precisely the stadium remains as another of the great failures of the oligarch, who never got the permits and the economic opportunity to move Chelsea to a new and better stadium, at the level of what rivals like Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City.
His departure, announced this Wednesday, comes after the club’s most glorious period in recent years. He won the last Champions League in Porto and was joined by the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup, the only two titles that were missing from his record.
The millionaire leaves with the sporting work done and doing a favor to whoever comes, since he has forgiven the more than 1,500 million pounds he lent to the club in recent times and that it could not return. This will considerably reduce the price of which he wants to take over the west London club.
His dying wish is to say a last goodbye to Stamford Bridge but, with the entire English Parliament calling for sanctions against him, it seems little more than a pipe dream. Abramovich built an empire and Abramovich had to let him go.
Source: Gestion
Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
