Roman Abramovich was reminded of the very old – Sport – Kommersant

Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, who owned the Chelsea football club until May last year, could also influence the Dutch Vitesse and even prevent this team from winning the championship of his country. According to The Guardian, citing documents from the database of the Cypriot company MeritServus, it was Abramovich who was the real owner of the team. Note that the close ties between Chelsea and Vitesse have never been a secret, and the Dutch Football Federation has twice conducted checks to find out if the businessman has “unacceptable influence” on Vitesse, and both times came to the conclusion that the suspicions are groundless .

Edition The Guardian on Wednesday, decided to refresh the story of more than a decade ago and published an article that tells that the former owner of Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, was also the de facto owner of the Dutch Vitesse.

The journalists of the newspaper got acquainted with documents from the database of the Cypriot company MeritServus, from which it follows that the purchase of Vitesse in 2010 by a Georgian entrepreneur, the former president of the Georgian Football Federation, Merab Zhordania, was financed by structures close to Mr. Abramovich.

In 2013, Mr. Zhordania sold the club to Russian entrepreneur Alexander Chigirinsky, and in 2018, another Russian entrepreneur, Valery Oif, became the owner of the team. In the fall of 2022, Oif sold the club to the American Common Group.

It is alleged that since 2010, structures controlled by the owners of Vitesse have received at least €117 million in loans from companies close to Roman Abramovich.

True, The Guardian admits that this is not grounds for asserting that it was Roman Abramovich who controlled Vitesse. But the data “convincingly shows” that Mr. Abramovich provided significant funding to the club.

Merab Zhordania himself confirmed to The Guardian that he borrowed money from Roman Abramovich and Alexander Chigirinsky. “It was my personal project, and they supported me a lot… When I didn’t have enough money, I used the resources of my friends, primarily Abramovich and Chigirinsky,” said Mr. Zhordania. He also explained that the debt was formalized as “let’s say, personal.”

Possession of two or more teams is not in itself a violation. But the UEFA regulations state that clubs controlled by one person cannot play in the same tournament.

True, UEFA President Alexander Ceferin did not rule out two weeks ago that this rule could be repealed.

Vitesse and Chelsea have never crossed paths in official matches, but The Guardian recalled that in 2014 Merab Jordania said that Chelsea prevented Vitesse from becoming Dutch champions in 2013. The Dutch team after the first round was in the lead in the national championship, but in the end became only the fourth and did not get into the Champions League, avoiding the intersection with Chelsea.

“I want to tell the Vitesse fans the truth,” The Telegraph quoted Mr. Jordania as saying. “I wanted to fight for the championship, but Chelsea didn’t want to. That is why head coach Fred Rutten left the club last June. He knew he couldn’t win the championship. We knew that we were missing the purchase of one player to win the championship – Calvin Leerdam. The transfer almost took place, but at that moment Chelsea intervened.

Later, however, Mr. Zhordania stated that he did not say anything of the kind, and Vitesse called it all a “bad April Fool’s joke.”

Nevertheless, the Dutch Football Federation launched an investigation. Already the second – the first was held in 2010. And, like the first time, she couldn’t find evidence that the Chelsea owner had undue influence over Vitesse.

Although it is also impossible to deny that Mr. Abramovich had the opportunity to influence the Dutch team. Vitesse actually acted as a farm club for the Londoners, who loaned some of their players to Holland. Allegedly, not without Russian influence in 2018, the head coach of Vitesse became Russian Leonid Slutsky.

Alexander Petrov