More than a year after the forced departure of Roman Abramovitch, skeletons are still hiding in Chelsea’s cupboards. The veil is gradually being lifted on the practices of the Russian oligarch, who reigned over the London football club for twenty years.
The “Cyprus Confidential” investigation today reveals the existence of a slush fund which was used to pay several personalities around the club. These payments, previously confidential, made through offshore companies, are likely to have violated the rules of financial fair play established to guarantee equity between European clubs.
Roman Abramovitch, 57, is a multifaceted character: multi-billionaire enriched by oil, patron of the arts, shadow diplomat, close to Vladimir Putin, he was also, for two decades, one of the major figures of English football. It was he who put Chelsea back on the European map after buying the club in 2003 for £140 million. Surrounded by economic sanctions following the war in Ukraine, the oligarch was forced to resell the club in 2022 for 5 billion euros to a group led by Todd Boehly, co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.
The “Cyprus Confidential” investigation
Opaque financial center, haven for Russian money, gray zone of the cyber economy: the “Cyprus Confidential” investigation tells how Cyprus, a small Mediterranean island, allowed itself to be overwhelmed by its offshore industry, becoming the weak link in the European Union in the fight against dubious financial flows.
This investigation is based on the leak of 3.6 million confidential documents from six Cypriot financial services firms (ConnectedSky, Cypcodirect Corporate Services, DJC Accountants, Kallias & Associates, MeritKapital and MeritServus) and the i-Cyprus company register . These “leaks” were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the German investigative media Paper Trail Mediawith the support of Distributed Denial of Secrets, a group of activists campaigning for transparency, then shared with sixty-nine international media outlets, including The world.
After the takeover of the club, the latter quickly alerted the financial authorities of the English football league about the “incomplete financial information” filed during the Abramovich era, without making further details public.
The “Cyprus Confidential” data leak now seems to provide part of the answer. Internal documents of the MeritServus firm, specialized in the provision of offshore services in Cyprus, consulted by The world and his partners, show that Roman Abramovitch took the place of his club on numerous occasions to pay several tens of millions of euros to agents, talent scouts and owners of competing clubs, drawing on his own resources.
The hypothesis of hidden commissions
In 2017, for example, an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands owned by the oligarch, Conibair Holdings, entered into a contract providing for the payment of 10 million pounds (11.2 million euros at the time) to the Italian agent Federico Pastorello. The same day Antonio Conte’s contract renewal was announced as Chelsea coach. However, several sources indicate that Federico Pastorello was Antonio Conte’s agent at the time. Was the payment from Conibair Holdings a way of hiding the commission it took from the contract? Mr. Pastorello refused to explain these transactions and to confirm that he represented the coach at the time, simply specifying that this is not the case currently.
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