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      Chelsea F.C. Shaken by Concerns, Complaints and a Suicide

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      When Chelsea’s new owners paid billions for the Premier League club, they also inherited accusations of a toxic culture inside its offices.LONDON — Month after stressful month, the problems mounted inside Chelsea F.C.Almost a dozen employees of the club’s marketing department said they had come to expect being berated by their boss in front of colleagues. Others said they had faced his wrath in more humiliating ways, ordered to stand up and leave staff meetings on a single man’s word.The pressure took its toll. By last year, multiple Chelsea employees had vanished for weeks, or sometimes months, of medical leave. At least 10 staff members — from a department that employs about 50 people — had left the club altogether, one employee said. Then, in early January, a well-liked former staff member killed himself.While it is unknown whether workplace pressure was to blame, his death stunned the Chelsea employees who had come to consider him a friend and sounding board. During conversations at a memorial service for him earlier this year, their sense of shock and sadness gave way to anger.“It should never have happened,” one employee said.Amid growing internal pressure to address the problems, Chelsea this spring hired a consultancy to conduct what was described as a “cultural review” of the marketing department. But few staff members had confidence in the process: The review of their workplace, they were told, would be overseen by the executive who they felt was to blame for the worst of its problems.Troubled TimesIt is hard to think of a professional sports team whose employees have had to endure the kind of uncertainty that the staff at Chelsea has faced this year.The club’s world was turned upside down in March, when the team’s longtime owner, the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, was sanctioned by the British government just as he announced plans to sell the Premier League club. Until that process was complete, those working for Chelsea — from players and coaches to executives and lower-level staff members — were left to worry about how to do their work; whether they would still be paid for it; and if their jobs would still exist once a new owner was found.Some of that uncertainty disappeared in May, when a group led by the Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly paid a record price to acquire Chelsea and the most onerous restrictions placed on the team’s business were lifted. But as all that was playing out in the headlines, a more troubling situation was festering behind the scenes.The New York Times interviewed almost a dozen current and former Chelsea employees in reporting this article. Speaking independently, all painted a picture of a dysfunctional workplace environment at Chelsea marked by unhappiness, intimidation and fear. But it was the death by suicide in January of Richard Bignell, the former head of Chelsea TV, that brought to light longstanding concerns about the environment inside the team’s marketing department — a group comprising roughly 50 employees — and the behavior of its leader, Gary Twelvetree.In a statement on Wednesday, two days after The Times contacted the club about the employees’ accusations, Chelsea said its new board had appointed “an external review team to investigate the allegations that have been made under previous ownership.”“The club’s new board believes strongly in a workplace environment and corporate culture that empowers its employees and ensures they feel safe, included, valued and trusted,” the statement said.While the club said “initial steps have been taken by the new owners to instill an environment consistent with our values,” it is unclear if any action has been taken by the new board in response to staff members’ allegations against Twelvetree. The club said he was unavailable for comment.While Bignell’s family chose not to speak with The Times when contacted, almost a dozen current and former Chelsea employees spoke of a toxic workplace culture under Twelvetree that they said left many staff members feeling belittled, bullied and sometimes even fearful of merely attending meetings.The employees spoke on condition of anonymity because some still work at Chelsea, or in soccer, and feared retaliation or damage to their professional reputations by detailing their experiences publicly. But a coroner’s report compiled after Bignell died in January and reviewed by The Times linked his suicide to “despair following the loss of his job.”By March, under pressure after Bignell’s death and amid growing frustration among the colleagues and friends he had left behind, Chelsea hired an outside firm to look into the culture inside the department as well as the accusations of bullying made by several employees against Twelvetree. But to the frustration of some employees, the club made no acknowledgment that the review was related to his death or any specific complaint.One staff member who left the Chelsea marketing department said the experience of working for Twelvetree simply became too much to take; fearing for their mental health, the employee quit the club despite not having lined up other employment. The experience had been so distressing, though, that the former employee detailed it in writing to Chelsea’s chairman, Bruce Buck. Others said they expressed similar concerns in communications with other top executives or in exit interviews with the club’s human resources staff. But little seemed to change beyond a churn of employees that had become so common that it was an open secret among recruiters who sometimes directed candidates toward open positions at Chelsea.Few employees had confidence in the review of the department once they heard it was to be jointly overseen by Twelvetree, the department head, and the outside consultants Chelsea hired.“It was not going to address the concerns, was it?” said a person asked to participate in the review. “How could it be if he is reviewing his own culture?”Staff members said that they have yet to receive any conclusions from the now-completed review, and that there have been no changes to work practices.“I consider myself to be quite a strong person and previously to working with Chelsea I never felt like I had concerns over my mental health,” said one former member of the marketing department. “But quite quickly after joining, I was not sleeping properly and it got worse and worse.”Alastair Grant/Associated PressThat anxiety became visible in Bignell, according to several of his former colleagues. Bignell had been a popular member of the club, heading its television operation, Chelsea TV. The channel had initially been run by the club’s communications department before moving into marketing as part of a new digital strategy implemented by the club’s hierarchy.The switch meant profound changes for Bignell, who had spent a decade running a television channel and was now required to switch his focus to producing digital content for social media, accounts that were under the direction of the team’s marketing staff. Bignell’s relationship with Twelvetree, staff members recalled, was a fraught one; Bignell, like others, struggled to deal with the marketing head’s management style, which could include biting, shouted critiques of their work that, some employees said, sometimes left colleagues in tears.A married father of two young daughters, Bignell largely hid the torment he was feeling from his co-workers, employees said. They described him as having a sunny, positive disposition, a colleague always ready to share a joke or lend an ear. But gradually, according to people who knew him, his physical condition had noticeably deteriorated.“Last time I saw him he was walking around Stamford Bridge and he was a mess,” said a colleague who encountered Bignell in the summer of 2021, around the time he left on medical leave. “He looked ill. He had lost so much weight.”Bignell returned to Chelsea in September and was abruptly fired the next day. In early January, he took his life. The team, in announcing his death on its website, said the “much-loved” Bignell was “a very popular and hugely respected member of the wider football and sports broadcasting family.” The coroner’s report, meanwhile, later linked his state of mind at the time of his death to his firing by Chelsea. “Richard was deeply troubled by anxiety, depression and despair following the loss of his job,” the report said.An Ongoing ExodusEven after Bignell’s death, and after the club’s cultural review, the Chelsea marketing staff has continued to lose employees.Those who have departed say they have now become used to providing emotional support for the colleagues who have stayed on. After attending one recent party marking the departure of multiple employees, for example, a former Chelsea staff member said she had spoken with so many individuals struggling with life at work that she had felt the event had doubled as a therapy session.Chelsea’s new ownership group, meanwhile, said Wednesday that it has reached out to Bignell’s relatives through the family’s lawyer. “Our heart goes out to Richard’s entire family,” the team’s statement said. “His passing has been deeply felt by his colleagues at the club and across the football community.”Senior Chelsea officials already had been speaking with the family, which had raised concerns about the circumstances of his death, and staff members said that they have continued to press internally for changes. But the sale of the club in May has only brought fresh uncertainty.As the new owners take control of the team, the most powerful leaders from Chelsea’s old regime are being replaced. The chief executive Guy Laurence, who runs the club’s day-to-day operations, and Buck, the outgoing chairman, were the most senior leaders whom staff members contacted with their concerns about working conditions.Now both are among those who will leave.If you are having thoughts of suicide, the following organizations can help.In Britain, contact Samaritans at 116-123 or email jo@samaritans.org. Calls are free and confidential. Or call Papyrus at +44 800 068 4141 (9 a.m. to midnight), or message Young Minds: text YM to 85258. You can also find a list of additional resources on Mind.org.uk.In the United States, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. More

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      Inside the Chelsea Sale: Deep Pockets, Private Promises and Side Deals

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      Britain’s government has cleared the sale of the Premier League soccer team. But to win approval, the new owners had to agree to a set of unusual conditions.LONDON — The British government on Wednesday gave its blessing to the purchase of Chelsea F.C., one of European soccer’s blue-ribbon teams, by an American-led investment group after deciding it had sufficient assurances that none of the proceeds from the record sale price — $3.1 billion — would flow to the club’s Russian owner.The government’s approval signaled the end of not only the most expensive deal in sports history but possibly the most fraught, cryptic and political, too.In the three months since the Russian oligarch who owns Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, hurriedly put his team on the market, the club’s fate has played out not only on the fields of some of world soccer’s richest competitions but in the corridors of power at Westminster and the soaring towers of Wall Street. And all of it is against the backdrop of crippling financial sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“We are now satisfied that the full proceeds of the sale will not benefit Roman Abramovich or any other sanctioned individual,” the government said in a statement. The path to a deal has entangled a scarcely probable cast of characters — private equity funds and anonymous offshore trusts; lawmakers in Britain and Portugal; an octogenarian Swiss billionaire and the American tennis star Serena Williams; an enigmatic Russian oligarch and a little known Portuguese rabbi — and featured a contested passport, wartime peace talks and even reports of an attempted poisoning.Its end leaves as many questions as answers. All that can be said for certain is that a group led by the Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly and largely financed by the private equity firm Clearlake will now control Chelsea, a six-time English and two-time European champion, and Abramovich will not.The American investor Todd Boehly leads a group that is now set to complete its purchase of Chelsea.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAbramovich first indicated his intention to sell Chelsea — the most high-profile of his assets by some distance — almost as soon as the Russian army crossed into Ukraine in late February, and only a week before Britain and the European Union identified him as a key ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and froze his assets.Completing a deal, though, has proved fiendishly convoluted. The final obstacle to a sale was resolved only this week, when lawmakers in Britain were sufficiently satisfied that a $2 billion loan owed to an offshore trust, believed to be controlled by Abramovich, had been cleared. British government officials then tried to reassure their counterparts in Portugal, which had controversially granted Abramovich a Portuguese passport with a rabbi’s help in 2018, and the European Union, which had imposed its own sanctions on Abramovich in March. Both must also approve the sale because of his Portuguese citizenship.But the loan was not the only complication faced by Raine, the New York-based investment bank recruited by Abramovich to handle the sale. The agreement with Boehly’s group came with a web of conditions, some set by the British government, some by Raine and some by Abramovich himself, all of them striking in the context of the sale of a sports team.Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine WarHistory and Background: Here’s what to know about Russia and Ukraine’s relationship and the causes of the conflict.How the Battle Is Unfolding: Russian and Ukrainian forces are using a bevy of weapons as a deadly war of attrition grinds on in eastern Ukraine.Outside Pressures: Governments, sports organizations and businesses are taking steps to punish Russia. Here are some of the sanctions adopted so far and a list of companies that have pulled out of the country.Stay Updated: To receive the latest updates on the war in your inbox, sign up here. The Times has also launched a Telegram channel to make its journalism more accessible around the world.All four prospective suitors identified by Raine as serious contenders — Boehly’s group; one headed by the British businessman Martin Broughton that included Williams and the Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton among its partners; another financed by Steve Pagliuca, the owner of the N.B.A.’s Boston Celtics; and one from the Ricketts family, who control baseball’s Chicago Cubs — were asked not only to pay a jaw-dropping price for the team but also to commit to a number of pledges, including as much as $2 billion more in investments in Chelsea.The club’s suitors were told, for instance, that they cannot sell their stake within the first decade of ownership and that they must earmark $125 million for the club’s women’s team; invest millions more in the club’s academy and training facilities; and commit to rebuilding Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s aging West London stadium.Chelsea’s new owners agreed to several conditions, including sizable investments in the club’s decorated women’s team.Michael Regan/Getty ImagesAt the same time, Abramovich insisted that all the proceeds from the sale would go toward a new charity to benefit the victims of the war in Ukraine. To ensure he does not gain control of that money, the British government will require it first be placed in a frozen bank account that it controls. Only then will it vet all the plans for the fund being drawn up by Mike Penrose, a former head of a branch of the United Nations children’s charity UNICEF, and issue a special license that will allow the charity to take control of the funds.“We will now begin the process of ensuring the proceeds of the sale are used for humanitarian causes in Ukraine, supporting victims of the war,” the government said in its statement.The charity was just one of the peculiarities of the deal arranged by Joe Ravitch, the Raine co-founder who directed the sale.The new owners also will not be permitted to take dividends or management fees or load the team with debt — terms that bankers related to the sale have described as “anti-Glazer clauses,” a reference to the unpopular owners of Manchester United who took control of the club in a leveraged buyout in 2005.Several people close to the process said Boehly’s bid was eventually selected from the group of wealthy suitors because of its willingness to abide by the clauses. (At least one of those people, who worked on the bid backed by Pagliuca, said their group withdrew from the running because of the nature of the conditions.)The Premier League has already signed off on the Chelsea sale, announcing Tuesday that it had vetted and approved the new owners “subject to the government issuing the required sale license and the satisfactory completion of final stages of the transaction.”It is not clear, though, quite what will happen if Boehly and his partners choose to renege on any of the conditions once they have control of the club. Any oversight role will fall on the charity, the only outside entity still inextricably linked to both Chelsea and Abramovich, or the continued influence of two key Abramovich lieutenants who hope to remain in their posts under the new owners.Both of those executives — the club chairman Bruce Buck and Marina Granovskaia, a Russian-born businesswoman who rose from being Abramovich’s personal assistant to the most senior official response for soccer trades at Chelsea — will earn at least $12.5 million for their work on the sale. The commissions to management, totaling as much as $50 million, and the fee to Ravitch, believed to be between 0.5 and 1 percent of the deal’s value, will be paid from the club’s balance sheet and not from the sale funds, according to a person familiar with the structure of the deal.Abramovich on a banner at Stamford Bridge. Beloved by fans for his spending on the team, he is barred from receiving any money from its sale. Clive Rose/Getty ImagesBritish government officials had clashed with Chelsea executives and financiers about creating a legally binding resolution to prevent Abramovich from getting access to the money he so publicly said he was willing to waive.At issue was a company called Camberley International Investments, run by a Cypriot trustee on behalf of what British officials believe was Abramovich and his children. Camberley lent $2 billion to Fordstam, the company through which Abramovich controlled Chelsea, to finance its spending and operations. Camberley’s claim against Fordstam has now been resolved, and its trustee has recently resigned.It was only at that point, with a May 31 deadline for the completion of the sale looming, that Britain’s government moved to approve the deal.For Chelsea’s fans, the sale draws an end to a season that at times blurred into absurdity. The sanctions imposed on Abramovich — and by extension Chelsea — affected everything from the team’s travel to the printing and sale of game programs. Thousands of empty seats dotted Stamford Bridge during games over the final months of the season after a ban on new ticket sales, and roster turmoil loomed because of a moratorium on the signing and sale of players.That will now be lifted, with Chelsea’s players and Manager Thomas Tuchel said to be urgently seeking clarity from Boehly and his group on their plans. At least two key defenders are slated to leave Chelsea this summer, and at least two more players — including the club captain, Cesar Azpilicueta — are expected to follow.Defender Antonio Rüdiger, unable to negotiate a new contract, announced he would leave Chelsea for Real Madrid. Other key players may depart this summer, too.Alastair Grant/Associated PressBoehly, a regular presence at Chelsea games since his takeover was announced on May 6, has broadly said he would like to maintain Chelsea as a major force in soccer. It is unlikely, though, that a group largely backed by a private equity firm will prove quite so indulgent as Abramovich was as an owner.In almost two decades at Chelsea, Abramovich was a familiar but all but silent presence at Stamford Bridge, happy to let his money do the talking. Under his leadership, Chelsea was transformed into a true European superpower, winning five Premier League titles and two Champions League crowns by employing a succession of A-list managers and investing billions of dollars in players.His largess changed Chelsea but also soccer as a whole, ushering in an era of unfettered spending that saw transfer fees and player salaries rise to levels unthinkable only a few years earlier. It also came at a price that Chelsea’s income, no matter how much it grew in those years of plenty, could not match. Throughout his tenure, Abramovich used his vast personal fortune to subsidize losses that ran as high as $1 million a week.Yet just as Abramovich’s arrival in 2003 opened the door to a new era for English soccer, his departure serves as a bookmark, too.While scarcity may explain part of the rush to pay a premium for Chelsea — soccer’s biggest teams are rarely up for sale, after all — it is not clear when, or how, a group of private equity investors who navigated such treacherous, confounding waters to get control of the club can start to realize a return on their investment. More

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      Chelsea F.C. Says It Will Sell to Boehly’s U.S.-Led Group

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      Chelsea, the Premier League soccer team whose sale was forced after the Russian oligarch who bankrolled its success was placed under crippling sanctions, will be bought by a consortium led by Todd Boehly, an American billionaire who is a part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the club said on Saturday.The price of 2.5 billion pounds, or $3.1 billion, would be the most ever paid for a team in any sport. The sale, one of the more unusual in modern sports history, still requires the approval of the British government, which imposed the sanctions on the club’s owner, Roman Abramovich, and froze his assets, including Chelsea, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.In a statement posted on its website early Saturday, Chelsea said the proceeds from the sale would be placed into a frozen British bank account, with the intention that all of the funds will eventually go to charitable causes, as Abramovich has promised.In addition to the sale price, Chelsea said, Boehly’s group had pledged to invest 1.75 billion pounds in the club, some of it for much-needed stadium renovations.Boehly’s group is being backed by the American investment firm Clearlake and also includes Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss businessman, and Mark Walter, an American financier who serves as a co-owner and the chairman of the Dodgers.The decision capped two tumultuous months for Chelsea, its fans and Abramovich, who said on March 2 that he had reluctantly agreed to part with the team, just as Britain’s government was moving to impose restrictions on his fortune and his businesses.The sale process was accelerated once the government formally froze Abramovich’s assets, part of a wider set of sanctions imposed on a group of wealthy Russians with ties to Moscow after the war in Ukraine began. The government has called Abramovich a close ally of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.Roman Abramovich has owned Chelsea since 2003.John Sibley/ReutersChelsea has been in a kind of limbo ever since, operating under a special license issued by the government, which comes with strict conditions that have severely affected its business. The team is currently unable to buy or sell players in the summer transfer market, nor can it sell tickets or merchandise to its supporters. Its spending has been severely restricted, affecting everything from the team’s travel to the printing and sale of programs.The restrictions, meant to ensure that no money flows to Abramovich, will only be lifted once the sale is completed.Chelsea, led by Thomas Tuchel, the German coach who secured the Champions League title within months of taking over at Stamford Bridge last year, has endured on-field difficulties as it tries to navigate its new reality. The results have been mixed: While Tuchel’s team currently is in third place in the Premier League, it was eliminated from the lucrative Champions League last month. Several players with expiring contracts have announced that they will leave at the end of the season, and until the sale is completed, Tuchel and the club have no way to replace them.Boehly’s group was given a week to close the deal after being chosen last week as the preferred bidder by the New York-based advisory firm Raine Group and Chelsea’s board members.The sale was nearing a conclusion last week when it seemed to be upended, after one of Britain’s richest men, Jim Ratcliffe, announced a bid that mirrored the offer from Boehly’s consortium, after the deadline had passed. On Wednesday, Ratcliffe, who had emphasized his British credentials when making his offer, said Raine had dismissed his bid but vowed to keep fighting to secure the team.Chelsea’s price tag compares with the £1.8 billion valuation ($2.3 billion) for its London rival Arsenal, in 2018, after its American benefactor, the businessman Stan Kroenke, became the sole owner of the club by buying out the 30 percent stake of another now-sanctioned Russian oligarch, Alisher Usmanov, for more than $700 million. Unlike Chelsea, Arsenal has a modern stadium and its finances have been stable.Britain’s Treasury will have to issue a separate license for the sale to go through, with specific clauses that include a requirement that none of the sale proceeds go to Abramovich.The buyers and Raine have discussed the possibility of the proceeds going to victims of the war in Ukraine, an idea that Abramovich raised when he said he would waive an enormous debt owed to him by the club. But it is unclear how such a transfer would work.Todd Boehly, the American who leads the group that has reached an agreement to buy Chelsea, was at the club’s match against Wolves on Saturday.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAbramovich invested nearly $2 billion of his personal funds during his 19-year tenure as owner, during which he covered losses of about $1 million a week as he recruited some of the best players in the world. The strategy was expensive but successful: Chelsea enjoyed the most successful period in its history, becoming a serial contender for domestic and international honors and winning five Premier League and two European Cups.If Boehly’s deal to buy the team goes through with the required approvals from the government and the Premier League, which also has to give its blessing to the sale, his group will have to figure out a way to maintain that successes while paring losses associated with the on-field success and also committing hundreds of millions of dollars to renovating Chelsea’s aging Stamford Bridge stadium, which with a capacity of just over 40,000 is far smaller than the arenas that play host to the Premier League’s biggest teams.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Russia’s punishment of Finland. More

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      British Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe Bids $5.3 Billion for Chelsea F.C.

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      The late offer by Ratcliffe, the chief executive of Ineos, for the Premier League soccer club would be the highest price ever paid for a sports team.Jim Ratcliffe, a billionaire industrialist and one of Britain’s richest men, has made a $5.3 billion offer to buy Premier League soccer team Chelsea F.C., a late and audacious proposal that dwarfs at least three other multibillion-dollar bids for the team.The price, if accepted, would be the highest ever paid for a sports franchise.“We are making this investment as fans of the beautiful game — not as a means to turn a profit,” Ratcliffe said in a statement issued by his petrochemicals business, Ineos, confirming his pursuit of Chelsea. “We do that with our core businesses. The club is rooted in its community and its fans. And it is our intention to invest in Chelsea F.C. for that reason.”Ratcliffe’s enormous offer for the West London club — which arrived on Friday as Chelsea and the bank it had hired the manage the sale were considering at least three other multibillion-dollar offers — caps a tumultuous and dizzying few weeks for Chelsea. Its current owner, Roman Abramovich, was forced to put the team up for sale when he was placed under crippling sanctions by Britain’s government and others for his association with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Under Abramovich, Chelsea has become one of the biggest and most successful teams in global soccer. That has come at a huge cost, though, with the team losing about $1 million a week since Abramovich, then an unknown Russian businessman, took control of the team in 2003.Ratcliffe, whose personal wealth might surpass Abramovich’s fortune, has suggested he would be willing to do the same. His offer will almost certainly be out of reach of the three bidders who were already being considered by the Raine Group, the New York-based merchant bank Chelsea has enlisted to handle the sale. Ratcliffe’s arrival has upended that process, but choosing him could make the sale speedier than it would have been.Any sale would require the approval of both the British government and the Premier League. The British government will need to issue a license, similar to one that allowed Chelsea to keep operating after Abramovich was placed on the sanctions list, and the Premier League must approve all new owners.As part of his offer, Ratcliffe pledged 2.5 billion pounds, or $3.1 billion, to a charitable trust “to support the victims of the war.” That language is similar to that used by Abramovich when he first announced he was putting the club up for sale. It remains unclear how such a charity would work, or how the British government would ensure that none of the proceeds of the sale flowed to Abramovich.Ratcliffe pledged to invest a further $2.1 billion on Chelsea over the next 10 years, a figure that would also include the redevelopment of the club’s aging Stamford Bridge stadium, another of Abramovich’s stipulations.Chelsea’s operations have been upended by the sanctions imposed on its Russian owner, Roman Abramovich.Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesRatcliffe, a self-described fan of Chelsea’s Premier League rival Manchester United since his school days, is worth $10.6 billion, according to an index of the world’s richest people compiled by Bloomberg. Chelsea would not be Ratcliffe’s first foray into sports investment, or even soccer. He owns the French professional soccer club OGC Nice, located close to his home in Monaco, and also F.C. Lausanne-Sport, a team in Switzerland. But purchasing Chelsea would be of a different magnitude altogether. He has pledged to retain the team’s place among the world’s elite teams.“We believe that London should have a club that reflects the stature of the city,” Ratcliffe said. “One that is held in the same regard as Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich. We intend Chelsea to be that club.”His 11th-hour offer will anger the group of American-backed bidders who have spent the last few weeks engaged in an increasingly complicated auction devised by Raine’s co-founder Joe Ravitch, the banker handling the sale. Deadlines for final bids were extended on several occasions, and then late this week the three investment groups remaining in the process were told to increase their offers by a further $600 million.Raine has not commented during the bidding process, beyond an interview in which Ravitch made the startling — and as yet unsubstantiated — claim to The Financial Times that Chelsea and other Premier League teams could be worth $10 billion within five years.At about the same time Ratcliffe went public with his bid, The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported that one of the finalists in the bidding, a group led by the Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly, was set to enter exclusive talks to acquire Chelsea.Boehly’s group had been challenged by a sprawling consortium bankrolled by Josh Harris and David Blitzer, members of the ownership group that controls the Philadelphia 76ers of the N.B.A., who this week added the Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton and the tennis star Serena Williams to their ranks.The third finalist was a group led by Steve Pagliuca, co-owner of the N.B.A.’s Boston Celtics. Pagliuca’s consortium includes Larry Tenenbaum, the chairman of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the N.B.A.’s Toronto Raptors, hockey’s Toronto Maple Leafs and Major League Soccer’s Toronto F.C.The circumstances of the sale have been among the strangest seen in professional sports, creating a beauty pageant that brought together some of the wealthiest people in the world, celebrity athletes and unknown figures that appeared intent on using the sale to raise their own profiles.For Chelsea’s players, staff and fans, a decision cannot come soon enough. The club has been working under highly unusual financial constraints since the sanctions against Abramovich, described by the British government as a close associate of Putin. The special government license that allows the team to operate has left the club holding as many as 10,000 unsold tickets for its home games, and has forced the team to limit its travel budgets and close the team store.The uncertainty over the future has affected the team on the field, too. Chelsea expects to lose two key defenders, Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen, when their contracts expire at the end of the season. Any talks with potential replacements cannot take place until a new owner replaces Abramovich. More

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      Endgame Nears in Bidding for Chelsea F.C.

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      English soccer’s biggest soap opera — the bidding war to own Chelsea F.C. — appears to be entering its endgame.The Raine Group, the New York merchant bank appointed to sell the Premier League soccer club on behalf of Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch whose assets have been frozen by the British government, is poised to name its preferred bidder as soon as this week. It will choose one of three groups backed by American investors, each of which has put forth a multibillion-dollar offer.In picking a winner, the Chelsea board, Abramovich and Raine will inch closer to bringing an end to one of the strangest, and richest, takeovers in modern sports history: a beauty pageant that brought together European soccer and American money; Chelsea legends and foreign poseurs; all part of a galaxy of individuals and groups with designs on a team that Abramovich’s billions have turned into a sporting powerhouse during his nearly two-decade reign.The sale, whenever a deal is finally closed, should yield the highest amount ever paid for a sports team, with estimates suggesting a price tag of about $3 billion. Abramovich is currently not allowed to receive any of the proceeds.One of the early front-runners in the race, a group led by Todd Boehly, a billionaire investor and a part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, remains well placed to prevail. But Boehly and his partners are being challenged by a sprawling consortium bankrolled by Josh Harris and David Blitzer, members of the ownership group that controls the Philadelphia 76ers of the N.B.A., who this week added the Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton and the tennis star Serena Williams to their ranks.The third finalist is led by Steve Pagliuca, co-owner of the N.B.A.’s Boston Celtics, and includes Larry Tenenbaum, the chairman of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the N.B.A.’s Toronto Raptors, hockey’s Toronto Maple Leafs and Major League Soccer’s Toronto F.C.Representatives of all three consortiums, as well as a group of bankers from Raine led by one of the firm’s founders, Joe Ravitch, were summoned to London this week, where each group was to make a final pitch.The surviving bidders navigated a path now littered with failed suitors, some to be taken seriously and others definitely not. A bid by the Ricketts family that owns Chicago Cubs, for example, had deep pockets but was torpedoed after anti-Muslim emails sent by the family patriarch Joe Ricketts — first reported in 2019 — resurfaced.The M.M.A. champion Conor McGregor offered £1.5 billion (about $1.8 billion) for Chelsea on Twitter, then later deleted the post and, presumably, the offer. A mysterious Turkish businessman who claimed to have spoken with Abramovich’s lawyers about a price, and who boasted that “we will fly the Turkish flag in London soon,” later missed the deadline for bids. He claimed his lawyers had sent his offer to the wrong email address.Chelsea’s manager, Thomas Tuchel, has lamented the slow pace of Chelsea’s sale but acknowledged there is little he and his team can do about it. Oscar Del Pozo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor Chelsea’s players, staff and fans, a decision cannot come soon enough. The club has been working under highly unusual financial constraints since the sanctions against Abramovich, an ally of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, were announced. A special government license that allows the team to operate has left the club holding as many as 10,000 unsold tickets for its home games, and has forced the team to limit its travel budgets and close the team store.The uncertainty over the future has affected the team on the field, too. Chelsea expects to lose two key defenders, Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen, when their contracts expire at the end of the season. Any talks with potential replacements cannot take place until a new owner replaces Abramovich.“It would be ideal” to have the situation resolved as soon as possible, Chelsea Manager Thomas Tuchel admitted Sunday after a victory over West Ham. “But you cannot pull grass so it grows faster.”The unique nature of the sale, though, means that whichever group is granted preferred bidder status will have only cleared the first hurdle. The British government must bless the sale in order for it to go through, and it will insist on strict rules to ensure that none of the proceeds go to Abramovich. He has said that any money he is due would be donated to new charitable foundation “for all victims of the war in Ukraine,” but plans for the charity remain vague.The prospective new owners then would have to be vetted and approved by the Premier League. That could raise a thorny complication for Harris and Blitzer: They currently own Chelsea’s London rival, Crystal Palace, and would therefore have to divest their stakes before taking control of another Premier League team.Pagliuca, meanwhile, has an investment in Italy’s Atalanta, a team that has appeared alongside Chelsea in the Champions League in recent years.David Klein/ReutersEmpty seats and a shuttered team store are some of the most obvious consequences of the sanctions imposed on Chelsea’s owner.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockChelsea fans protested a bid by the Ricketts family after racist comments by the family’s patriarch resurfaced. The group later pulled its offer.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockAs deadlines for final offers were extended once, and then again, the process became subject to numerous leaks in the news media, leading some bidders to privately express frustration and make claims of unequal treatment. Raine has not commented on the process beyond an interview with the Financial Times in which Ravitch made a startling, and unsupported, claim about Chelsea’s value.“My guess is that Chelsea and all of the top Premier League clubs will probably be worth in excess of $10 billion in five years,” he said, in what was seen as a bid to drive the sales price even higher. “So I think whoever buys Chelsea today at the prices we’re talking about is getting it for a steal.”Chelsea’s record of success under Abramovich — five Premier League titles and two Champions League crowns — has not come cheaply; his outlay in pursuit of those honors has cost him nearly $2 billion from his personal fortune.It is unclear how the new owners will be able to maintain that record of success without deepening those losses, which during Abramovich’s stewardship amounted to more than $1 million a week. Under the terms of the sale, any new owner will also have to commit to redeveloping the team’s stadium, Stamford Bridge. Abramovich once pledged to finance that project, to the tune of $1.3 billion, before shelving the plan in 2018 amid a visa dispute that has kept him out of Britain for years.The team will also need to rebuild its relationships with some of its key partners. Three, a telecoms company, suspended its sponsorship with Chelsea once the ban against Abramovich was announced, and, fearing that it might be drawn into the sanctions dispute, asked that its logo be removed from the team’s jerseys. Several weeks later — to the growing frustration of Three executives — the logo remains, with the club unwilling to use stickers to cover it up or order new shirts without it.Fans have been central in the efforts of would-be buyers of the club, with several rounds of discussions now having taken place between investor groups and influential supporter organizations, and each bidding group has added local representatives in an effort to stress their Chelsea bona fides. Boehly is working with Danny Finkelstein, a former adviser to the ruling Conservative Party. The Harris-Blitzer consortium was assembled by the former British Airways chairman Martin Broughton, and includes the former Olympics official Sebastian Coe. Pagliuca has won the support of the former Chelsea captain John Terry.But the sensitivity of the process has also highlighted how even a single misstep can prove costly.The former player Paul Canoville, Chelsea’s first Black player, revealed this week in a statement of his own that he had met with multiple groups during the bidding process but had found one after another wanting. He described the ownership efforts of Hamilton and Williams, who have claimed to support other teams, as “disrespectful” to Chelsea; credited the since-withdrawn Ricketts bid for its plans to support the Chelsea foundation; and admitted that a plan by one group to offer fans some sort of cryptocurrency technology “went over my head.”Canoville has now publicly backed the Boehly-led bid. More

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      Real Madrid Edges Chelsea to Reach Champions League Semifinals

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      A curving assist by Luka Modric and an extra-time header by Karim Benzema carried Real Madrid back to the Champions League semifinals.MADRID — The noise rose and swelled with every second that ticked, changing timbre and tone as it did so. It started with whistles, desperate and urgent, only to turn into something closer to a roar, formless and elemental, filled with angst and anticipation, as if the sound itself could ward off any more suffering.By the time the final whistle blew, it was so loud that it seemed to be bubbling up from the ground or rumbling down from the sky. Somehow, though, that proved to be the prelude: The release was still to come, as Real Madrid’s and Chelsea’s players collapsed to the turf, the victors on the day defeated and the beaten triumphant over two legs, and the Bernabeu crackled and shook.This is not the first time a Champions League game has ended like this, of course: The spectacular comeback and the breathtaking twist now rank as this competition’s calling card, a feature so regular that it is remarkable, in a way, that every time it happens it somehow retains its capacity to surprise.It is not even like it is a rarity here. The sight of Real Madrid’s players, spread-eagle on the field in a state of pure, blissful exhaustion, having somehow turned certain defeat into a triumph actually happens with alarming frequency. It happened just a month ago or so, against Paris St.-Germain, for a start.This is just what the Champions League does: produce evenings in which Villarreal, a team bobbing just above mid-table in Spain, can knock out Bayern Munich and still find itself overshadowed. It is just what Real Madrid does: flirts with disappointment, toys with disaster, and then flicks a switch and emerges victorious.Even by those standards, though, Real Madrid’s draining, stirring, thrilling defeat of Chelsea — on aggregate (5-4), if not on the evening itself (a 3-2 loss) — managed to be more draining, more stirring, more thrilling than most.Chelsea’s three goals had briefly given it hope it could reverse its first-leg deficit.Manu Fernandez/Associated PressThere was not just one comeback, after all, but two, stitched together in the same marathon game: Chelsea overcame the two-goal lead Real Madrid had established in London last week, seemingly booking its place in the semifinals in the process, and then Real Madrid, beaten and cowed, rose from the ashes to snatch it away.Everything turned on a single pass. For 80 minutes, Real’s fans had done nothing but suffer. They had arrived at the Bernabeu in high spirits, drifting up the Paseo de la Castellana filled with absolute confidence that Carlo Ancelotti’s team could get the job done. It is Real Madrid in the Champions League, after all. That is just how these things work.It lasted all of 15 minutes, pierced in a flash by Mason Mount’s opening goal. The Bernabeu became unsettled, uneasy. Real Madrid seemed to freeze, as if arguably the most experienced, most grizzled team in Europe was not quite sure what the protocol was in this situation. Chelsea smelled blood.Just after halftime, Chelsea’s Antonio Rüdiger scored — a simple goal, a header from a corner, as if all of this is quite easy — and the tie was level. An oppressive, fretful silence descended, the sound of 61,000 people waking up and remembering that, oh yes, this Real Madrid team is quite old now, isn’t it, and it’s been through a lot, and it’s in need of a refresh.There was a brief flicker of hope when Marcos Alonso’s goal was ruled out for the slightest of handballs, but it proved illusory. A few minutes later, Timo Werner skated and skidded around the edge of the six-yard box and bundled the ball over the line. The jeers rained down, then, just for a moment. A few people headed to the exits. A few people always head to the exits. At this stage, everyone really should know better.Rodrygo’s goal, off a curling pass from Modric, set the stage for yet more drama in extra time.Paul Childs/Action Images Via ReutersThat was the mood, then, when Luka Modric got the ball, just inside Chelsea’s half, with 10 minutes to play. There was, to the naked and untrained eye, no option ahead of him; just Rodrygo, the young Brazilian wing, racing off on the other side of the field, dutifully tracked by a defender. Modric had no choice but to turn back, to change the angle of attack, to build again.Or, it turned out, he could sweep a ball with the outside of his right foot just beyond the Chelsea defense and straight onto Rodrygo’s boot, inside the area, timed perfectly for him to steer a shot past Edouard Mendy without breaking stride. The pass did not exist. Modric found it anyway, and in doing so, Real Madrid found its belief.That goal took the game to extra time, giving the home team, the impending Spanish champion, a reprieve. Real Madrid does not waste those.Karim Benzema, scorer of all three of his team’s goals in the first leg, headed Real Madrid into the lead on aggregate with 96 minutes gone. By that stage, all sense of order had fractured, all thought of planning or reason or strategy cast to the winds.Karim Benzema scored four times in two games against Chelsea.Juan Medina/ReutersChelsea threw all of its players forward. Real Madrid’s substitute left back, Marcelo, ended up playing as a forward, for reasons that even he did not really understand. There were frights: a shot from Jorginho, a header from Kai Havertz. The whole evening, the whole campaign, seemed to hang by a thread.All the while, the noise was building, yearning at first and then impatient and finally righteous and demanding. It became a place and a crowd crying to be put out of their misery. Nobody heard the whistle. Nobody could hear the whistle.They knew it was over only when they saw the players on the turf, all the breath drawn from their bodies, their legs suddenly buckling, a conclusion at once impossible and inevitable. They should be used to this by now, really. This is how it always ends, at Real Madrid, after all. It just does not always end like this. More

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      Karim Benzema Carries Real Madrid Over Chelsea

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      Three goals confirm what should have been obvious long ago: Benzema is Real Madrid’s brain, and its heart.LONDON — Luka Modric has, by this stage, seen pretty much all there is to see. He has won four Champions League titles. He has played in a World Cup final. He has spent a decade at Real Madrid, embedded among some of the finest players of his generation. He is one of the finest players of his generation. He is, most likely, neither easily impressed nor easily surprised.A little more than 20 minutes into the first leg of Real Madrid’s Champions League quarterfinal against Chelsea on Wednesday, Modric saw something that did both. He was standing on the edge of Chelsea’s penalty area, admiring the flight of the cross he had just delivered. He would have been pleased with it: a deft, clipped number, swirling away from Edouard Mendy’s goal, and toward his teammate Karim Benzema.An eye as keen as Modric’s, though, would have recognized that the trajectory of the ball and the position of the player were not quite in sync. Benzema was a little too far forward, or the cross was a little too far back. It was out by only an inch or so, but few players treasure precision more than Modric; these things matter.Still, all was not lost. Benzema had options. The most obvious one was to try to steer the ball low to Mendy’s right. Or, perhaps, he could try to replicate the header that had opened the scoring a couple of minutes earlier, one of such force that it had flashed past Mendy before he had chance to recognize it. In a pinch, Benzema might even have time to bring the ball down, and play from there.What Modric could not have anticipated was what followed. Benzema, leaning ever so slightly backward, nodded the ball gently, almost softly, back across Mendy’s goal. It hung in the air for what seemed like an age, drifting toward the far post. There was a moment of silence as Mendy, Modric and everyone else inside Stamford Bridge waited to see where it would land.It nestled, at last, inside the post. As Benzema turned away, his smile broad and his palms open, to race toward Real Madrid’s fans, Modric still seemed to be frozen. He waited a beat, maybe two, before jumping, just a little, into the air, his arms aloft, a grin of disbelief on his face. Just occasionally, it turns out, Karim Benzema can even surprise Luka Modric.Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesPeter Cziborra/Action Images Via ReutersBenzema’s header for Madrid’s second goal looped over and then out of reach of Chelsea’s goalkeeper, Edouard Mendy.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse, via Ikimages/Afp Via Getty ImagesIn that, at least, he is not alone. The arc of Benzema’s career is, in truth, a little misunderstood. It is not quite right to present him as a late bloomer, a flickering talent who waited until the final few years of his career to deliver on his longstanding promise, to learn how to make the most of his gifts.Benzema has always been obviously, lavishly, absurdly talented; he was, after all, only 19 years old when Jean-Pierre Papin — no mean striker himself, in his day — declared that Benzema possessed the dynamism of (the Brazilian) Ronaldo, the imagination of Ronaldinho, the elegance of Thierry Henry and the ruthlessness of David Trézéguet.By the time he was 21, Benzema had come close to signing for Barcelona, and completed a move to Real Madrid. He would spend the first decade of his career in Spain scoring — on average — a goal every couple of games, the traditional watermark for elite strikers, and creating many more. Zinedine Zidane, his coach for a considerable portion of that time, variously described him as “the best” and a “total footballer.”That he was not the star of the show, of course, takes no great explanation: He was playing only a few yards from one of the greatest strikers of all time, a forward who made scoring one in every two look quaint and old-fashioned and actually, when you thought about it, something of a letdown.Benzema was perfectly happy about that. He willingly sacrificed his own strengths, his own ambitions, to help his teammate maximize his. In doing so, he ensured that no player, arguably, more than him suffered quite so much from the redefinition of the possible that marked the era of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.The golden autumn that Benzema has enjoyed, then, since Ronaldo’s departure in 2018, is best thought of as a form of optical illusion: It is not that he shines any brighter than before, but that the blazing torch that for so long drowned every other point of light has departed. It is only now that it is possible to see Benzema in high definition.What has emerged is an uncanny impression of the player that Papin described all those years ago. Benzema has become — has always been, most likely — a complete center forward, an entire attack made flesh, and yet even that undersells him. He is the player who makes this Real Madrid, aging and somewhat patchwork, a complete team.The proof of that is simple. A couple of weeks ago, in his absence, Carlo Ancelotti’s Madrid was overwhelmed on home soil by a resurgent Barcelona. That night, as it suffered a 4-0 defeat and the Bernabeu jeered and whistled its heroes, Real Madrid looked like what it was supposed to be: a team in the grip of an awkward and uneasy transition from one era to the next, half comprising a team that had had its day and half comprising a side awaiting its chance.On either side of that disappointment, with Benzema in the team, Real Madrid has overpowered an admittedly complicit Paris St.-Germain and now — more impressively, given the French team’s penchant for self-immolation — beaten Chelsea, the reigning European champion, on its own turf. On both occasions, Benzema has not just scored all three goals, he has been Madrid’s brain and its heart, its focal point and its cutting edge.He is, almost single-handedly, a guarantee of Real Madrid’s continued European relevance. Ancelotti will, now, be confident of helping his team to a second straight semifinal in the Spanish capital next week — though he would doubtless disagree with the assessment of his Chelsea counterpart, Thomas Tuchel, that the tie was over — so long as Benzema is present. He is the one who makes it all work. Maybe that should not be a surprise. Maybe he has always been the one who makes it all work. It is just that we have only started to notice it now. More

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      How Roman Abramovich, a Russian Oligarch, Found Himself Under Sanctions

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      As Russian troops massed near the border with Ukraine last month, the American ambassador to Israel received an appeal on behalf of Roman Abramovich, the most visible of the billionaires linked to President Vladimir V. Putin.Leaders of cultural, educational and medical institutions, along with a chief rabbi, had sent a letter urging the United States not to impose sanctions on the Russian, a major donor, saying it would hurt Israel and the Jewish world. Days later, Mr. Abramovich and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, announced a partnership that a spokesman for the organization said included a pledge of at least $10 million.The request to the diplomat reflects the extraordinary effort Mr. Abramovich, 55, has made over the last two decades to parlay his Russian fortune into elite standing in the West — buying London’s Chelsea soccer team, acquiring luxury homes in New York, London, Tel Aviv, St. Barts and Aspen, collecting modern masterworks and contributing to arts institutions around the world. With two superyachts, multiple Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin sports cars, and a private 787 Boeing Dreamliner jet, Mr. Abramovich wanted everyone to know that he had arrived.But now the backlash against the Russian invasion of Ukraine is tarnishing the status that Mr. Abramovich and other oligarchs have spent so much to reach. On Thursday, British authorities added him to an ever-expanding list of Russians under sanctions for their close ties to Mr. Putin.Mr. Abramovich, whose fortune is estimated at more than $13 billion, was barred from entering Britain or doing any business there — disrupting his plans to sell his soccer team and prohibiting it from selling tickets to matches, even blocking him from paying to keep the electricity on in his West London mansion.Oligarchs like Mr. Abramovich “have used their ill-gotten gains to try to launder their reputations in the West,” said Thomas Graham, a Russia scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But the message of these sanctions is, that is not going to protect you.”On Friday, Canada announced sanctions of its own against Mr. Abramovich. The United States has not imposed sanctions on the billionaire — so far, at least. In a statement explaining its actions, the British government said that the businessman had profited from transactions with the Russian government and special tax breaks. The statement also suggested that a steel company Mr. Abramovich controlled could contribute to the war against Ukraine, “potentially” supplying steel for Russian tanks. The business, Evraz, said in a statement that it had not done so. A representative for Mr. Abramovich did not respond to a request for comment.“The blood of the Ukrainian people is on their hands,” Liz Truss, the British foreign minister, said of the oligarchs under sanctions. “They should hang their heads in shame.”Mr. Abramovich on a trip in 1999 to Chukotka, a desolate province in northeastern Russia where he was elected governor.Victor Vasenin/Kommersant/Sipa USA, via Associated PressMichael McFaul, an American ambassador to Moscow during the Obama administration, recalled that while Mr. Putin’s government claimed to despise the United States and its allies, his foreign ministry was constantly trying to help the oligarchs around him, including Mr. Abramovich, obtain visas so that they could ingratiate themselves with the Western elite.“On our side, we have been playing right along,” he said, overlooking the oligarchs’ ties to Mr. Putin and welcoming them and their money.Orphaned as a child in a town on the Volga River in northern Russia, Mr. Abramovich dropped out of college and emerged from the Red Army in the late 1980s just as the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was opening new opportunities for private enterprise. Mr. Abramovich plunged into trading anything he could, including dolls, chocolates, cigarettes, rubber ducks and car tires.His big break came in the mid-1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when he and a partner persuaded the Russian government to sell them the state-run oil company Sibneft for about $200 million. In 2005, he sold his stake back to the government for $11.9 billion. Other deals followed, including the formation of a mammoth aluminum company. Many involved the Russian state, and some ended in bitter litigation.After Mr. Putin was inaugurated president in 2000, he quickly moved to dominate the billionaire businessmen who had profited from privatization, sending a message by jailing the richest and most powerful oligarch. Mr. Abramovich is one of the few early elite who remain in his circle.As Mr. Putin was consolidating power, Mr. Abramovich served as governor of a desolate northeastern province from 2001 until 2008.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Mr. Abramovich in 2005.Reuters“I started business early, so maybe that’s why I’m bored with it,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 2001 about his interest in the region, saying he wanted to lead a “revolution toward civilized life.”But like other oligarchs wary of the new president’s power to make or break them, Mr. Abramovich also began looking for footholds outside Russia.Mr. Putin’s display of force “increased the incentive for the oligarchs to have acceptance in the West,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a professor of international relations at Columbia University and former ambassador at large to the former Soviet Union. “Who knows when you might fall out with Putin and need an alternative place to land?”In spring 2003, Mr. Abramovich was in Manchester, England, to watch the legendary Brazilian forward Ronaldo score a game-winning hat trick for Real Madrid. The Russian had never shown much interest in soccer before, but that night he was smitten.He soon began shopping for a team — looking in Spain and Italy before settling on England and finally on Chelsea. His $180 million takeover — completed in quick, stealthy talks with the British financier Keith Harris over a single weekend — transformed the club. In his first summer, he went on the largest single spending spree for players that English soccer had ever seen.Within two years of his arrival, Chelsea was the English champion for the first time in a half-century, and the team has since won four more championships. A Russian flag has hung outside the stadium for years, emblazoned with the words “The Roman Empire,” alongside a stylized image of its owner’s face. (Britain on Friday said it would consider proposals to buy the soccer team under special conditions.)Mr. Abramovich during a parade in London in 2005 after Chelsea became the English champion for the first time in a half-century.Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt a news conference when Russia won the right to host the 2018 soccer World Cup, Mr. Putin commended Mr. Abramovich for the development of Russian soccer, too, and suggested he might play a role in “a public-private partnership” to prepare for the tournament. “He has a lot of money in stocks,” Mr. Putin noted, smiling.While looking after his London soccer team, Mr. Abramovich met and married his third wife, Dasha Zhukova, the daughter of a Russian oil magnate, who had grown up partly in Los Angeles; studied Russian literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and tried fashion design in London.In 2011, he bought an elegant 15-bedroom mansion near Kensington Palace for a reported price over $140 million, which was expanded a few years later to include a huge underground swimming pool.Then he turned heads in Manhattan in 2014, paying $78 million for three adjacent townhouses on East 75th Street, in a landmark district of the Upper East Side. He proposed combining the three homes of different styles into a single mega-mansion, with an elevator, a new glass-and-bronze rear facade and a pool in the lower level. The Historic Districts Council, an advocacy group, called the plan “a whole new level of egregious consumption.” But he ultimately managed to win city approval, in part by purchasing a fourth adjacent townhouse for nearly $29 million and revising his alteration plans.Mr. Abramovich bought four adjacent townhouses on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and set about converting three of them into one mansion.Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersMs. Zhukova had developed a growing interest in art, and in 2008 she and Mr. Abramovich founded Garage, a seminal contemporary art center in Moscow. (Amy Winehouse performed at the opening, and early shows included works by Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons.) He joined the board of the Bolshoi Theater. And Mr. Abramovich started to earn a reputation as one of the biggest spenders in the art world, known for buying pieces by blue-chip artists. He spent nearly $120 million at auctions in the same week, acquiring a Francis Bacon triptych and Lucian Freud’s “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping.”Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. More