Chelsea heavily impacted as UK sanctions, freezes assets of Roman Abramovich

The potential sale of Chelsea has been thrown into uncertainty, as owner Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the UK government and his assets, including Chelsea Football Club, have been frozen.

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Chelsea have been given a special license (which runs out on May 31, 2022) to continue to operate as a club but they will not be able to buy and sell players, hand out new contracts to current players and benefit financially through merchandise, new ticket sales and many other avenues.

The UK government may ‘vary, revoke or suspend’ this license at any time, so there is the potential for the license to change in order for Chelsea to be sold but it appears the UK government will take over that process.

As of right now, the sale of the club is on hold as Abramovich was said to be close to selling Chelsea in the coming days for a reported fee of over $3 billion, as he previously said net profits would be donated to victims of the war in Ukraine.

A report from the Daily Telegraph says that Chelsea can still be sold, but only if no proceeds from the sale go to Roman  Abramovich.

The UK government released a list of sanctions against Roman Abramovich, and others, for his close association with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The UK state that “Roman Abramovich is a prominent Russian businessman and pro-Kremlin oligarch” and that he has “had a close relationship with Vladimir Putin for decades.”

Our partners in the UK at Sky Sports understand that Chelsea and UK government officials will meet on Thursday, and Chelsea’s released a statement saying they will seek to be allowed to “operate as normal as possible.”

Here is the statement from the UK government specifically on how this will