Tommy Martin: The great oligarch survivor, Roman Abramovich now part of the fabric of English football

If Alexei Navalny’s intention was to create negative publicity around Abramovich in the UK, then Frank Lampard at least provided a useful decoy runner for his former boss

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has not been to Stamford Bridge since 2018, when he was denied a UK visa in what was believed to be a hardening of British attitudes to Russia.

In the current political climate, perhaps we should avoid describing Roman Abramovich as ‘trigger-happy’. 

The image of the cold-blooded Russian assassin has long been associated with the Chelsea owner, thanks to his fondness for dispatching underperforming managers. But given that there are plenty of actual cold-blooded Russian assassins in the news these days, maybe we should choose our words more carefully.

Alas, not even the distraction of events in Abramovich’s homeland could save Frank Lampard. The return to Russia last week of Alexei Navalny, anti-corruption campaigner and long-time political rival of president Vladimir Putin, sparked widespread protests against the Russian premier.

Navalny had spent the past five months in Germany recovering from an attack on his life he alleges was carried out by Putin’s secret service cronies. On his return he was promptly arrested and could face years in prison.

If only Lampard were so ruthless towards opposition, Abramovich might have mused.

According to the official club statement, sacking Lampard was “a very difficult decision” for Abramovich due to the “personal relationship” between the two. The Chelsea owner’s relationship with Putin goes back even further. All in all, it must have been an emotionally draining few days for Abramovich — especially when his own name popped up amid the troubles back home.

In fact, on the same day as the defeat to Leicester that reportedly sealed Lampard’s fate, Abramovich was named by Navalny’s close associate Vladimir Ashurkov on a list of eight Russian oligarchs and businessmen on whom, he claimed, western governments should impose sanctions.

Ashurkov said the list was agreed with Navalny before he returned to Russia. It described Abramovich as “one of the key enablers and beneficiaries of the Russian kleptocracy, with significant ties/assets in the West.” The list also included Alisher Usmanov, the former Arsenal shareholder with current links to Everton. Both men have always strongly denied such claims.

Navalny’s strategy has two fronts. One is to use social media to provoke domestic unrest of the kind witnessed on the streets of many Russian cities last week.

In one week, the charismatic Navalny has received 94m YouTube views for an investigation into what he claims is the building of a lavish palace for Putin using kickbacks funnelled through state companies. Many protesters last week carried toilet brushes, a reference to the €700 Italian loo scrubbers Navalny claimed were to be found in Putin’s lair. Putin denies the palace belongs to him and claims Navalny is a US- and UK-funded propagandist.

Navalny’s other angle is to pressurise western governments to act against wealthy Russians who he alleges facilitate the Putin regime.

As Vladimir Putin experiences what many analysts reckon is the first real test of his rule, Roman Abramovich keeps getting dragged into the unpleasantness.

If the intention was to create negative publicity around Abramovich in the UK, then Lampard at least provided a useful decoy runner for his former boss. There were vastly more headlines generated by the sacking than any alleged association with Russia’s own under-pressure gaffer.

Media picked over where things had gone wrong for Lampard in minute detail: The failure to integrate big-money signings like Timo Werner and Kai Havertz; a lack of tactical instruction to the players; a frosty relationship with club director and key Abramovich lieutenant Marina Granovskaia.

Mostly, everyone accepted that, under Abramovich, this is simply the way.

Shrugging acceptance is the default response towards the Chelsea owner now, whether you are talking about his famous impatience with managers or any suggestion of murky dealings in the old country. He’s been around for so long, Abramovich feels like a part of the fabric of English football.

It can be easy to forget the seismic impact he made when he bought Chelsea back in 2003. A trailblazer for super-rich foreign owners, his unchained spending shifted the game’s economic structures forever. For the first time, football had to ask where the money was coming from.

The Wild West economics of post-Soviet Russia created a class of oligarchs whose money flooded out of the country, finding a welcoming home under the UK’s no-questions-asked privacy laws.

Football, too, said ‘play on’. Moral qualms about Abramovich’s wealth were swept aside in the shock and awe of Jose Mourinho’s title-winning teams. As time went by, few cared where the money came from — Abramovich seemed like a pussycat given what followed via Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

Still, as Putin experiences what many analysts reckon is the first real test of his rule, Abramovich keeps getting dragged into the unpleasantness. He has not been to Stamford Bridge since 2018, when he was denied a UK visa in what was believed to be a hardening of British attitudes to Russia following the attempted poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

Navalny has been a regular thorn too. Back in November, recovering in Germany from what was identified as novichok poisoning, Navalny spoke to the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and told them to follow the money.

“There is no sense to sanction colonels or generals or people who are definitely not travelling a lot or have bank accounts in Europe,” he said.

“Just target Russian oligarchs. Just tell Mr Usmanov, Mr Abramovich … ‘Guys, you are acting against Russian people, you are acting against Europe… So please, take your yachts and get them somewhere to the nice harbours of Belarus Republic.”

Abramovich and Usmanov have always insisted allegations of association with Kremlin corruption are totally unfounded.

While Navalny has caused a stir back home, Putin remains as popular as you’d imagine a strongman ruler with control over most of the state’s media would be. And though EU foreign ministers say they will await Navalny’s court case before deciding on further sanctions, most observers expect the building of a new gas pipeline between Russia and Germany to be a higher priority than seizing the assets of oligarchs.

So it’s likely Abramovich lost more sleep over sacking Lampard than being dragged into Putin’s problems. After all, he is the great survivor of the oligarch class, making out better in recent decades than many contemporaries, some of whom ended up jailed, exiled, or dead. Unlike most of his coaches at Chelsea, Abramovich has proved quite adept at managing upwards.

While history suggests new Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel will experience his boss’s ruthlessness sooner rather than later, Abramovich might be more relaxed about his own long-term future.