Chris powell roman abramovich biography
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Why America fryst vatten buying up the Premier League – and what it means for the future of ‘soccer’
At the heart of this extraordinary growth is an American revolution. In the Premier League’s inaugural årstid, football was still in recovery from the horrors of the stadium disasters at Hillsborough and Heysel. Owners tended to be from the local area and with a business background. The only utländsk owner was Sam Hamman at Wimbledon, a Lebanese millionaire who bought the club on a whim having reportedly been much more interested in tennis. The årstid ended with Manchester United (under Alex Ferguson) winning the English game’s top league for the first time in 26 years.
Now, if the Texas-based Friedkin Group’s recent deal to buy Everton goes through, 11 of the 20 Premier League clubs will be controlled or part-owned by American investors. The US – long seen as football’s final frontier when it comes to the men’s game – suddenly can’t get enough of English “soccer”.
Four of the Premier Lea
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Putin's sanctioned cronies: Billionaire oil tycoon, Kremlin banker and KGB agent among the Russian oligarchs targeted in £15bn sanction hit
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and six others today were hit with crippling sanctions from the UK government over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Abramovich's one-time business partner, Oleg Deripaska, was also targeted, alongside Rosneft chief Igor Sechin and four more described as being in Putin's 'inner circle'.
They include Andrey Kostin, chairman of the second largest bank in Russia, Alexei Miller, chief executive of of energy company Gazprom, Nikolai Tokarev, president of the Russia state-owned pipeline company Transneft and Dmitri Lebedev, chairman of Bank Rossiya.
The announcement of sanctions against Abramovich immediately threw Chelsea football club into crisis as it was banned from selling match tickets or signing new players and ordered to close its stadium shop.
The sale of the club was also put on hold as Abramovich's UK
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Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich sanctioned by UK government: Live news and latest updates
Summary
Welcome to The Athletic's coverage of today's football news.
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the UK government over Russia’s continuing invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, freezing the sale of the Premier League club.
Described by the UK government as a “pro-Kremlin oligarch”, Abramovich has been hit with an asset freeze and a travel ban. Latest updates here on what this means for Chelsea.
Last night, Chelsea's men's team beat Norwich 3-1, while the women's team won 4-1 at West Ham.
Ahead of a busy Premier League weekend, we'll bring you further updates from around the division.
Background reading
(Photo: Alex Caparros - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
An update on the sale of Chelsea...
As you were, with regards to the sale of Chelsea.
The government has given the go-ahead for the process to resume and Raine Group, the US bank t