Roman Abramovich exit leaves Chelsea braced for change of owner and new set of rules

On a wet night at the compact, old-fashioned stadium of Luton Town, Romelu Lukaku poked in the goal 12 minutes from full-time that restored Chelsea’s sense of hierarchy. The Club World Cup winners and Champions League holders had trailed twice to the second-tier club on the way to a 3-2 win. Their most costly footballer, Lukaku, had been picked in a mix-and-match XI after starting the two, important previous fixtures only as a substitute.

If that was all slightly topsy-turvy, it was nowhere near as unsettling as the announcement, not long before the kick-off of Tuesday’s FA Cup tie, that the individual who has owned Chelsea since 2003, Roman Abramovich, is actively seeking the sale of the club. Abramovich has been willing to listen to offers for most of the last four years, but circumstances directly related to the military invasion by Russia, Abramovich’s native country, of Ukraine, have added urgency to his distancing himself from two decades of transformative influence and vast financial support of Chelsea.

Buyers are being sounded out, with a view, according to parties involved in brokering the would-be sale, to a quick transfer of ownership. Abramovich announced that the estimated £1.5 billion in loans that he has provided to the club would not be repayable by new owners and that net proceeds from the sale of a club he bought for £140m almost 20 years ago would be channelled to relief and recovery projects in Ukraine.

Whoever takes over Chelsea, the club will change the way it operates. There is certainly a market for the leading London club in football’s most globally popular domestic competition, the Premier League, but the potential for growth that likely investors would seek must be mapped out around certain