Roman Abramovich’s £2.35bn Chelsea sale was meant to aid Ukraine’s war victims — but new accounts reveal most funds remain frozen, tangled in loans, sanctions, and disputes. Only a fraction may ever reach those it was promised to help.
When Roman Abramovich was forced to sell Chelsea FC in 2022, the deal was touted as one of the most extraordinary acts of reparation in modern sport. The £2.35 billion sale to American billionaire Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital came with a solemn pledge — every penny would go to victims of the war in Ukraine. But three years later, that promise is teetering on the edge of collapse. Newly released accounts reveal that far less than half of the amount raised may actually reach those it was meant to help.
Fordstam Ltd — the Abramovich-owned parent company that sold Chelsea — has finally published long-delayed accounts suggesting that loans totalling £1.54 billion must be repaid to companies linked to Abramovich before any funds can go to charity. That would leave roughly £987 million for humanitarian causes — if the money is ever released at all.
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‘The Expectation Was Overplayed’
The revelations have stunned observers who once saw the sale as a beacon of moral clarity amid the chaos of Russia’s invasion.
Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert at the University of Liverpool, put it bluntly:
“The expectation that the full proceeds of the sale of Chelsea would go to the victims of the Ukraine war appear to have been overplayed.”
Maguire warned that the complicated structure of loans and the dispute over how the money should be distributed could mean that no payment is ever made.
“The slow progress in distributing the money, partially due to queries raised by parties connected to Abramovich, and the loans repayable to his offshore funding company, could result in a much smaller than anticipated distribution — assuming that one is finally made,” he told The Times.
The Money Frozen in Time
All proceeds from the 2022 sale remain locked in a frozen account belonging to Fordstam Ltd. The company’s accounts, signed off on October 10 this year, list Abramovich’s Jersey-registered Camberley International Investments Ltd as being owed £1.42 billion — part of the £1.54 billion total debt.
The accounts include a telling passage:
“The intention of the owner of Fordstam Limited, Roman Abramovich, as announced in a public statement is for the company to gift the net proceeds of sale, after allowing for other balance sheet items, to a charitable foundation set up to benefit those who have suffered due to the war in Ukraine.”
Only once those “balance sheet items” — meaning loans — are cleared can the company be wound up and any remaining funds handed to charity.
London vs. the Oligarch
The UK government’s frustration is now palpable. Neither the loans nor the funds for the proposed charitable foundation can be released without a special licence from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI).
In June, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Foreign Secretary David Lammy issued a rare joint statement expressing their exasperation:
“The Government is determined to see the proceeds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club reach humanitarian causes in Ukraine, following Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion. We are deeply frustrated that it has not been possible to reach agreement on this with Mr Abramovich so far. While the door for negotiations will remain open, we are fully prepared to pursue this through the courts if required.”
Behind the scenes, officials admit the talks are deadlocked. Abramovich insists the funds must help both Ukrainians and Russians “caught up in the war” — a demand London refuses to accept.
Chelsea’s Brush With Oblivion
As this legal and moral standoff continues, new details have emerged about how close Chelsea came to disappearing altogether during the turbulent weeks of its sale.
According to the book Sanctioned: The Inside Story of the Sale of Chelsea FC, published earlier this year, the club’s trusted director Marina Granovskaia was prepared to call the government’s bluff. With sanctions choking Chelsea’s operations — even preventing ticket sales — she reportedly believed Downing Street would never risk letting one of the world’s biggest football clubs collapse.
Her gamble almost cost Chelsea its existence. As the government’s May 31, 2022 deadline loomed, Granovskaia and her team worked 20-hour days to salvage the deal. It became a chaotic global saga involving alleged poisonings, secret diplomacy, and even a plea from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Abramovich’s Poisoning and Peacemaker Claims
Abramovich himself — who has rarely spoken publicly since being sanctioned — granted two interviews for Sanctioned, one in Istanbul in January 2024 and another in Abu Dhabi in January 2025.
The book paints him as a man caught between worlds: an oligarch turned reluctant mediator who travelled through war zones in convoys, dodging shellfire as he tried to broker talks between Kyiv and Moscow.
After one such mission, Abramovich and two aides reportedly fell violently ill in Kyiv. He lost consciousness, suffered peeling skin and temporary blindness, and was rushed to a nearby hospital.
“His vision has never returned to what it was,” the book claims.
The poisoning coincided with Chelsea’s FA Cup tie against Luton Town on March 2, 2022 — the very day Abramovich’s aides, working from Heathrow Airport’s arrivals hall, hastily drafted his statement announcing Chelsea’s sale. It took less than half an hour to write — but its words would reverberate for years:
“All proceeds would be donated to victims of the Ukraine war.”
The Shockwaves Inside the Club
The Chelsea dressing room had no warning. Petr Cech, then a club executive, was forced to break the news before kick-off. “Control only what you can,” he told the players. “Win this match.”
Thomas Tuchel’s men did — 3–2 against Luton — but the emotional toll was visible. Both Tuchel and women’s head coach Emma Hayes became the public faces of a crisis far bigger than football. Tuchel even offered to drive the team himself after government restrictions capped away-day spending at £20,000 — half the normal Premier League budget.
A Legacy Entangled
Three years later, Abramovich’s legacy sits frozen — literally and figuratively. His claim of wanting to aid “victims on both sides” has clashed headlong with London’s moral stance.
The £2.35 billion raised from one of football’s most storied clubs remains untouched in a British bank account, the victims of war still waiting for the promise made to them.
What began as an act of goodwill has become a tangle of sanctions, offshore loans, and international mistrust. As Kieran Maguire warned, the noble expectation that Chelsea’s sale would heal wounds of war now looks “overplayed.”
For now, the billions remain in limbo — and a once-beloved owner’s final gesture of generosity risks fading into yet another casualty of geopolitics.