Roman Abramovich

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (Russian: Рома́н Арка́дьевич Абрамо́вич, pronounced ):  born 24 October 1966) is a Russian-Israeli billionaire businessman, investor and politician.

Abramovich in 2007

Abramovich is the primary owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC, and is best known outside Russia as the owner of Chelsea F.C., a Premier League football club. He was formerly governor of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug from 2000 to 2008.

According to Forbes, Abramovich's net worth was US$12.9 billion in 2019  making him the richest person in Israel, 11th-richest in Russia, and the 120th-richest person in the world. He has donated more money than any other living Russian, with donations between the years 1999 and 2013 of more than US$2.5 billion to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure in Chukotka.

Personal life

Family

Abramovich's family is Jewish and are originally from Tauragė, Lithuania, with the Lithuanian spelling of the family name being Abramavičius. His father Arkady (Aron) Abramovich (1937–1970) was a state office manager, while his grandfather Nahim (Nahman) Abramovich (1887–1942) was a businessman. Nahim (Nahman) Abramovich was born in Eržvilkas, Lithuania and his wife, (Roman Abramovich's paternal grandmother), Tauba (maiden name Berkover) was born in Jurbarkas, Lithuania. They were married in Tauragė, Lithuania in 1925. During the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania, the family and their children were sent to Siberia, as victims of the June deportation. Spouses found themselves in different carriages and lost each other. Abramovich's grandfather, Nahim, died in Gulag camp Reshoty (Решёты) in 1942. Abramovich's mother was Irina Michalenko.

Having lost both parents before the age of 4, Abramovich was raised by relatives and spent much of his youth in the Komi Republic in northern Russia. Abramovich is the Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, a trustee of the Moscow Jewish Museum and donates money to the Chabad movement.

Abramovich has been married and divorced three times. In December 1987, following a brief stint in the Soviet Army, he married Olga Yurevna Lysova; they divorced in 1990. In October 1991, he married a former Russian Aeroflot stewardess, Irina Vyacheslavovna Malandina. They divorced in 2007. He and Malandina have five children; Ilya, Arina, Sofia, Arkadiy and Anna. On 15 October 2006, the News of the World reported that Irina had hired two top UK divorce lawyers, following reports of Abramovich's close relationship with the then 25-year-old Dasha Zhukova, daughter of a prominent Russian oligarch, Alexander Zhukov. It was speculated that a future divorce settlement (amounting to a conjectured £5.5 billion (€6.5 billion)) might be the highest ever on record. The Abramovich's replied that neither had consulted attorneys at that point However, they later divorced in Russia in March 2007, with a reported settlement of US$300 million (€213 million). Abramovich married Zhukova in 2008,and they have two children, a son, Aaron Alexander, and a daughter, Leah Lou. In August 2017, the couple announced that they would separate and their divorce was finalised in 2018. In 2019, his third wife announced her engagement to Greek billionaire Stavros Niarchos.

Relationship with Russian leaders

Boris Yeltsin

By 1996, at the age of 30, Abramovich had become close to President Boris Yeltsin, and had moved into an apartment inside the Kremlin at the invitation of the Yeltsin family.

In 1999, the 33-year-old Abramovich was elected governor of the Russian province of Chukotka. He ran for a second term as governor in 2005. The Kremlin press service reported that Abramovich's name had been sent for approval as governor for another term to Chukotka's local parliament, which confirmed his appointment on 21 October 2005.

Vladimir Putin

Abramovich was the first person to originally recommend to Yeltsin that Vladimir Putin be his successor as the Russian president. ^:135 When Putin formed his first cabinet as Prime Minister in 1999, Abramovich interviewed each of the candidates for cabinet positions before they were approved. ^:102 Subsequently, Abramovich would remain one of Putin's closest confidants. In 2007, Putin consulted in meetings with Abramovich on the question of who should be his successor as president; Medvedev was personally recommended by Abramovich .

Chris Hutchins, a biographer of Putin, describes the relationship between the Russian president and Abramovich as like that between a father and a favorite son. Abramovich himself says that when he addresses Putin he uses the Russian language's formal "Вы" (like Spanish "usted", German "Sie", Italian "lei" or French "vous"), as opposed to the informal "ты" (Spanish "tú", German "du", Italian "tu" or French "tu"). Abramovich says that the reason is because 'he is more senior than me'. Within the Kremlin, Abramovich is referred to as "Mr A".

In September 2012, the High Court judge Elizabeth Gloster said that Abramovich's influence on Putin was limited: "There was no evidential basis supporting the contention that Mr Abramovich was in a position to manipulate, or otherwise influence, President Putin, or officers in his administration, to exercise their powers in such a way as to enable Mr Abramovich to achieve his own commercial goals."

Abramovich is one of many Russian "oligarchs" named in the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017.

European football

Chelsea F.C.

Further information: Chelsea F.C.

In June 2003, Abramovich became the owner of the companies that control Chelsea Football Club in West London. The previous owner of the club was Ken Bates, who went on to buy Leeds United. Chelsea immediately embarked on an ambitious programme of commercial development, with the aim of making it a worldwide brand on a par with footballing dynasties such as Manchester United and Real Madrid, and also announced plans to build a new state-of-the-art training complex in Cobham, Surrey.

Since the takeover, the club have won 13 major trophies – the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europa League twice, the Premier League five times, the FA Cup four times (with 2010 providing the club's first ever league and FA Cup double), and the League Cup three times, making Chelsea the second most successful English trophy winning team in the decade with 15 honours, behind only Manchester United with 17 honours in the same time span. His tenure has also been marked by rapid turnover in managers, who can be fired if they do not bring immediate success and maintain it.

Detractors have used the term "Chelski" semi-affectionately to refer to the new Chelsea under Abramovich, to highlight the modern phenomena of billionaires buying football clubs and "purchasing trophies", by using their personal wealth to snap up marquee players at will, distorting the transfer market, citing the acquisition of Andriy Shevchenko for a then-British record transfer fee of around £30 million (€35.3 million)

In the year ending June 2005, Chelsea posted record losses of £140 million (€165 million) and the club was not expected to record a trading profit before 2010, although this decreased to reported losses of £80.2 million (€94.3 million) in the year ending June 2006. In a December 2006 interview, Abramovich stated that he expected Chelsea's transfer spending to fall in years to come.

UEFA responded to the precarious profit/loss landscape of clubs, some owned by billionaires, but others simply financial juggernauts like Real Madrid, with Financial Fair Play regulations.

Chelsea finished their first season after the takeover in second place in the Premier League, up from fourth the previous year. They also reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, which was eventually won by surprise contender Porto, managed by José Mourinho. For Abramovich's second season at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho was recruited as the new manager, replacing the incumbent Claudio Ranieri. Chelsea ended the 2004–05 season as league champions for the first time in 50 years and only the second time in their history.

Roman Abramovich at Stamford Bridge during a 4–0 victory over Portsmouth in August 2008.

Abramovich is present at nearly every Chelsea game and shows visible emotion during matches, a sign taken by supporters to indicate a genuine love for the sport, and usually visits the players in the dressing room following each match. This stopped for a time in early 2007, when press reports appeared of a feud between Abramovich and manager Mourinho regarding the performance of certain players, notably Andriy Shevchenko. 

In the early hours of 20 September 2007, Mourinho announced his exit as Chelsea manager by mutual consent with the club following a meeting with the board. The former Israel coach and Chelsea's director of football, Avram Grant, was named as his replacement. Ever since Grant had joined Chelsea in 2007, there had been friction between him and Mourinho. Mourinho reportedly told Grant not to interfere in team affairs but, with Abramovich's backing, Grant's profile at the club rose after he was made a member of the board. This event apparently did not go down well with Mourinho and may have contributed to his surprise departure. Grant led Chelsea to the position of runners-up in the Premiership and the club's first appearance in the Champions League final, beaten by Manchester United on both accounts. Nevertheless, on 24 May 2008, Grant was sacked as manager by Abramovich.

On 11 June 2008, it was announced that Luiz Felipe Scolari, who had taken Brazil to World Cup glory in 2002, would be taking over as manager, but he only lasted until 9 February 2009 before being sacked. In February 2009, acclaimed coach Guus Hiddink was appointed caretaker manager for the rest of the 2008–09 season, delivering Chelsea's first post-Mourinho trophy with the FA Cup.

Hiddink was replaced by another former European Cup winning boss, Carlo Ancelotti. In May 2010, Ancelotti took Chelsea to their first league and FA Cup "double" in his first season as manager. The following season, in January 2011, Spanish footballer Fernando Torres completed his move to Chelsea on a 5 ¹⁄₂-year contract on 31 January for an undisclosed fee, reported to be £50 million, which set a new record for a British transfer and made him the fourth most expensive footballer in history. Ancelotti was sacked as manager at the end of his second season with the club in May 2011. 

André Villas-Boas, after taking Porto to a Europa League triumph, and having previously worked alongside Mourinho at Stamford Bridge, was appointed as Abramovich's seventh manager of Chelsea on 22 June 2011. Villas-Boas, however, was sacked in on 4 March due to a bad run of form, with only one win in 11 games. The next manager was Roberto Di Matteo, who was appointed to this role after winning the Champions League and the FA Cup serving in a caretaker capacity. Di Matteo was also sacked on 21 November 2012 after their 3–0 loss to Juventus. Former Liverpool boss Rafael Benítez was appointed as manager for the remainder of the club's campaign. He won Chelsea the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League against Benfica before leaving at the end of his term as interim manager.

Roman Abramovich watches his team Chelsea play against Leicester City, August 2014

After the 2012–13 season, Benítez left Chelsea, whereupon José Mourinho returned as manager, signing a four-year deal. On 1 July 2013, Chelsea celebrated ten years under Abramovich's ownership. Before the first game of the 2013–14 season against Hull City on 18 August 2013, the Russian thanked Chelsea supporters for ten years of support in a short message on the front cover of the match programme, saying, "We have had a great decade together and the club could not have achieved it all without you. Thanks for your support and here's to many more years of success."

In December 2015, José Mourinho was sacked after a ninth defeat in 16 Premier League matches left Chelsea just one point above the relegation zone. Guus Hiddink took over as manager from December to June 2016 after which he was sacked due to the club going several matches without a win and not qualifying for a spot in the Champions League.

On 4 April 2016, it was confirmed Antonio Conte had signed a three-year contract. The Italian officially took over at Stamford Bridge, replacing interim manager Guus Hiddink after guiding his country to the quarter-finals of UEFA Euro 2016.

Conte had two successful years as head coach of Chelsea after being appointed in April 2016, winning the title in his first season and the FA Cup in his second. Despite the FA Cup success, he led Chelsea finished fifth in the league at the end of the 2017–18 season, missing out on Champions League qualification. Conte was dismissed as Chelsea manager on 13 July 2018.

In March 2017, Chelsea announced it had received approval to for a revamped £500m stadium at Stamford Bridge with a capacity of up to 60,000. 

On 14 July 2018, Maurizio Sarri was appointed manager of Chelsea, replacing Antonio Conte who was sacked the day before. However, he departed after just one season - for Italian giants Juventus - where he won the Europa League, reached the Carabao Cup final and finished 3rd. The departure was marked as Sarri wanted to leave, as compared to all other managers under Abramovich's tenure who were dismissed.

Following the delay in the renewal of Abramovich's British visa by the Home Office, and his subsequent withdrawal of the application, in May 2018 Chelsea halted plans to build a £500m stadium in south-west London due to the "unfavourable investment climate" and the lack of assurances about Abramovich's immigration status. Abramovich was set to invest hundreds of millions of pounds for the construction of the stadium.

CSKA Moscow

In March 2004, Sibneft agreed to a three-year sponsorship deal worth €41.3 million (US$58 million) with the Russian team CSKA Moscow. Although the company explained that the decision was made at management level, some viewed the deal as an attempt by Abramovich to counter accusations of being "unpatriotic" which were made at the time of the Chelsea purchase. UEFA rules prevent one person owning more than one team participating in UEFA competitions, so Abramovich has no equity interest in CSKA. A lawyer, Alexandre Garese, is one of his partners in CSKA.

Following an investigation, Abramovich was cleared by UEFA of having a conflict of interest.^[ Nevertheless, he was named "most influential person in Russian football" in the Russian magazine Pro Sport at the end of June 2004. In May 2005, CSKA won the UEFA Cup, becoming the first Russian club ever to win a major European football competition. In October 2005, however, Abramovich sold his interest in Sibneft and the company's new owner Gazprom, which sponsors Zenit Saint Petersburg, cancelled the sponsorship deal.

Russian national team 

Abramovich at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany

Abramovich also played a large role in bringing Guus Hiddink to Russia to coach the Russia national football team. Piet de Visser, a former head scout of Hiddink's club PSV Eindhoven and now a personal assistant to Abramovich at Chelsea, recommended Hiddink to the Chelsea owner.

National Academy of Football 

In addition to his involvement in professional football, Abramovich sponsors a foundation in Russia called the National Academy of Football. The organization sponsors youth sports programs throughout the country and has constructed more than fifty football pitches in various cities and towns. It also funds training programs for coaches, prints instruction materials, renovates sports facilities and takes top coaches and students on trips to visit professional football clubs in England, the Netherlands and Spain. In 2006 the Academy of Football took over the administration of the Konoplyov football academy at Primorsky, near Togliatti, Samara Oblast, where over 1,000 youths are in residence, following the death at 38 of its founder, Yuri Konoplev.