Chelsea FC face fresh questions over how its former owner Roman Abramovich funded the club’s success, after leaked files revealed a string of secret payments that may have breached strict football rules, including those on “financial fair play”.
Experts said the transactions, uncovered through a joint investigation by the Guardian and international partners, could lead to the Premier League imposing punishments on Chelsea, such as a deduction of points.
The files reveal a series of payments worth tens of millions of pounds over a decade, routed through offshore vehicles belonging to Abramovich. The transactions in question appear to have been for Chelsea’s benefit, raising questions about whether they were declared in accounts submitted to football’s governing bodies.
Every time I read about Roman’s financial transactions, there are new shell companies from the BVI. More shell companies than people have throwaway email/reddit accounts. He must have a dedicated guy on payroll just for naming them.
I’ve never understood the success of shell companies, just go out on the beach and pick them up.
Sad for the new owners since nobody from the Roman era is still there but I guess they didn’t do the necessary due diligence.
Actually, it is due to Boehly this is known. After they took over, he found these transaction and reported them.
Wrong. This information is due to insider leaks from a Cypriot bank/company. You can read about this story and others from the excellent OCCRP reporting.
Isn’t due diligence usually done in advance of a buy? Seems kind of reckless.
You do have to question this entire piece of journalism considering it’s not telling us anything new or groundbreaking. We already know as fact that Clearlake have reported secret payments that were made under previous ownership to the Premier League months ago when going through the club’s finances. I don’t suppose Bruce Buck or Marina are around to face questioning?
I swear it’s like a new publication gets to write this exact story every couple of weeks (coincidentally the last one came during the last international break aka slow news cycle).
Next they’re going to tell us we paid Andreas Christensen’s dad as a scout or that we paid Bertrand Traore’s mum - both of which we’ve already served two transfer bans for btw.
We already know as fact that Clearlake have reported secret payments that were made under previous ownership to the Premier League months ago when going through the club’s finances.
I don’t think much of it has been leaked to the press though - this is the media doing what the should be doing.
The question is, what kind of punishments should Chelsea face? If it’s a small points deduction years later, when it ultimately doesn’t matter, then it’s not much of a deterrent to anyone else.
The only fair punishment that would also act as a deterrent, is to strip them of all their titles during this period.