Abramovich Targets the World

[Darr]

By Giles over at the bootroom... Interesting read...

http://www.sigames.com/the_bootroom.php?type=view&article_id=1091


"Personally, I do not believe that Abramovich and his billions are in any way, shape, or form, good for football. His Chelsea team are going strong and look invincible at the moment. While I do believe that some credit must be given to Jose Mourinho for the impact he has had on a squad of superstars, I think that if Chelsea finish first, they will not have won the title. They will have bought it. And that is a very sad state of affairs for the beautiful game."

[Mel B]

By Giles over at the bootroom... Interesting read...

http://www.sigames.com/the_bootroom.php?type=view&article_id=1091


"Personally, I do not believe that Abramovich and his billions are in any way, shape, or form, good for football. His Chelsea team are going strong and look invincible at the moment. While I do believe that some credit must be given to Jose Mourinho for the impact he has had on a squad of superstars, I think that if Chelsea finish first, they will not have won the title. They will have bought it. And that is a very sad state of affairs for the beautiful game."


I do cocknose. Simple as that man.

[The Jitty Slitter]

By Giles over at the bootroom... Interesting read...

http://www.sigames.com/the_bootroom.php?type=view&article_id=1091


"Personally, I do not believe that Abramovich and his billions are in any way, shape, or form, good for football. His Chelsea team are going strong and look invincible at the moment. While I do believe that some credit must be given to Jose Mourinho for the impact he has had on a squad of superstars, I think that if Chelsea finish first, they will not have won the title. They will have bought it. And that is a very sad state of affairs for the beautiful game."

This article is interesting but seems to reach some illogical conclusions. Eg if the brazilliam club Corinthians are in such bad shape and not in any decent competitions, how will it increase the value of Tevez to play there, and risk injury as the article states?

[england66]

By Giles over at the bootroom... Interesting read...

http://www.sigames.com/the_bootroom.php?type=view&article_id=1091


"Personally, I do not believe that Abramovich and his billions are in any way, shape, or form, good for football. His Chelsea team are going strong and look invincible at the moment. While I do believe that some credit must be given to Jose Mourinho for the impact he has had on a squad of superstars, I think that if Chelsea finish first, they will not have won the title. They will have bought it. And that is a very sad state of affairs for the beautiful game."

love the bit in the article about "money laundering"...abromovich is already using Chelsea to launder the money he stole from the soviet union...I doubt he will be travelling back to moscow much more as the chances of his being arrested in russia seem to improve daily...

[sweet nick willy]

Here's another article along the same lines:

http://www.worldsoccer.com/editor/

[the101er]

love the bit in the article about "money laundering"...abromovich is already using Chelsea to launder the money he stole from the soviet union...I doubt he will be travelling back to moscow much more as the chances of his being arrested in russia seem to improve daily...

Your chances of being arrested in Russia improve daily.

Meanwhile, the article seems to insinuate that Abramovich has bought Tevez off Boca to weaken them. Why? In case Chelsea win the CL and must face Boca in the Club World Championship in Tokyo?

What if Corinthians win the Toyota Cup? Then Abramovich has wasted millions and still Chelsea must face the most feared man in all of football: the next, next, next, next Maradona.

Should've sold Tevez to DC United. That's what RA will be thinking.

[Eddie26]

This article is just utter garbage. It holds no weight. I mean f'n hell, it's not even a reputable new source, it's SI Games!!!! Please!

This clown just blabbers and blabbers, provides no hard facts and then says to accept it as truth. Don't be a moron and believe everything you read on any site.

He says FIFA did nothing more than pick up the phone in their investigations. I'm sorry, I didn't know writers for SI games were privy to this info. Huh...

He's also wrong in that there is nothing against owning more than one team, they just can't be in the same federation. Huh...

He says that Chelsea has a feeder system in place with teams like Porto and CSKA. Porto is no feeder team. We bought 2 of their players (and manager) for a TON of money. That doesn't make them a feeder team. We've bought one player from CSKA (Jarosik) as cover after Parker went down. Guess that's a feeder team too. Nevermind the fact that Jarosik is cup-tied since he already played in the CL. Doesn't Man U have a feeder arrangement with teams (a Belgian one but I can't remember the name). Guess that's ok though. Huh...

He says Jarosik said that all the CSKA players consider themselves the Chelsea reserves. Please give us the quote, the publication, etc. This writer is just talking (writing) out his a[/B]ss. Even if they did consider themselves the Chelsea reserves, it's not like they can just get called up to the Chelsea squad. Huh...


I am not saying that RA isn't doing all this (in fact, I tend to believe that he is) but this guy provides no proof and gives us no facts. It's all shit. If this does prove to be true though, then all the Chelsea haters will have to stop laughing about what will happen when RA leaves because if this all comes out later as being true, it shows he's in for the long haul.

[king_saladin]

When I read the title, I thought "Targets the World Cup". Then thought "How does he plan to buy citizenship for a bunch of star players?"

[Rabbi Keane]

When I read the title, I thought "Targets the World Cup". Then thought "How does he plan to buy citizenship for a bunch of star players?"


He could at an early age bring the most talented teens in the world to russian clubs. After a few years, they would all get russian citizenship. Presto, a very impressive russian national team.

This is probably his next step, after he's elected president of the russian FA.

evil ........ EVIL

[Eddie26]

He could at an early age bring the most talented teens in the world to russian clubs. After a few years, they would all get russian citizenship. Presto, a very impressive russian national team.

This is probably his next step, after he's elected president of the russian FA.

evil ........ EVIL

Nah, he turned down that position.

Rabbi Keane...I F'N LOVE YOUR USERNAME. It's hilarious.

[Mel B]

Nah, he turned down that position.

Rabbi Keane...I F'N LOVE YOUR USERNAME. It's hilarious.


Rabbi Keane man. Classic. :D :D :D :D

[YNWAYNWA]

Friday, August 30 2002: Russian Businesses With Organized Crime Links Expanding Into Romania

Report by Paul Cristian Radu

. . . Roman Abramovich controls the Sibneft Company (Siberian Oil Company), which is a huge company in the world of fuel businesses. In his book The Merger, which gives details on the "international conglomerate of organized crime", US author Jeffrey Robinson mentions that Abramovich is a person very close to Boris Yeltsin. He is Tatyana Diacenko's financial aide. She is the former Russian president's daughter. Moreover, he is also one of Leonid Diacenko's associates, who is Tatyana's husband. Robinson provided evidence of Russian organized crime's activities. He wrote that some time in the middle of the '90s, when Kremlin decided to sell the Omsk refinery, which had been owned by the state until then, Abramovich's Sibneft was an actor in a sinister story. In practice, the general director of the Omsk refinery opposed the idea to sell the state's stock. He ended his life "floating with his face looking downward", in a river. Then, Sibneft purchased the majority stock of the Omsk refinery. Oil sales were handled through a company with its headquarters in New York. Its name is Belka Energy. It dealt with the sale process together with a Russian company named Runicom. Runicom is the same company where Constantin Iavorski, the incumbent owner of Unicom Holding SA used to work. The latter holds the monopoly over deals in liquid fuels and the railroad industrial transportation activities carried out on Romania's eastern border. . .

http://www.crji.org/arhiva/e_031122.htm

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585670308/qid=1110653767/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/104-1094809-9927139

[Mel B]

Friday, August 30 2002: Russian Businesses With Organized Crime Links Expanding Into Romania

Report by Paul Cristian Radu

. . . Roman Abramovich controls the Sibneft Company (Siberian Oil Company), which is a huge company in the world of fuel businesses. In his book The Merger, which gives details on the "international conglomerate of organized crime", US author Jeffrey Robinson mentions that Abramovich is a person very close to Boris Yeltsin. He is Tatyana Diacenko's financial aide. She is the former Russian president's daughter. Moreover, he is also one of Leonid Diacenko's associates, who is Tatyana's husband. Robinson provided evidence of Russian organized crime's activities. He wrote that some time in the middle of the '90s, when Kremlin decided to sell the Omsk refinery, which had been owned by the state until then, Abramovich's Sibneft was an actor in a sinister story. In practice, the general director of the Omsk refinery opposed the idea to sell the state's stock. He ended his life "floating with his face looking downward", in a river. Then, Sibneft purchased the majority stock of the Omsk refinery. Oil sales were handled through a company with its headquarters in New York. Its name is Belka Energy. It dealt with the sale process together with a Russian company named Runicom. Runicom is the same company where Constantin Iavorski, the incumbent owner of Unicom Holding SA used to work. The latter holds the monopoly over deals in liquid fuels and the railroad industrial transportation activities carried out on Romania's eastern border. . .




So what. His team plays class football and that's good enough for me sunshine.

[RichardL]

, I think that if Chelsea finish first, they will not have won the title. They will have bought it. And that is a very sad state of affairs for the beautiful game."
tell the guy who wrote the article that the 1960s are over. Virtually every single title since then has been won with bought talent.

Why is having a chairman pumping money in less acceptable than a club having tens of millions to spend because they've turned themselves into an exploitative global brand?

[YNWAYNWA]

some people are concerned about where the money came from

searching the net brings up some scary items, such as

"Chelsea boss linked to $4.8bn loan scandal
From Dominic Kennedy in Berne

::NOMPU:: THE Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich was one of the key suspects in the lingering mystery over the possible misuse of a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to Russia.

Mr Abramovich and, in particular, his Runicom trading group are named in documentation from a Swiss inquiry into what happened to a huge injection of Western aid designed to prop up the ailing rouble.

As Mr Abramovich celebrates Chelsea’s 1-0 victory over Manchester United in their first Premiership fixture of the season yesterday, The Times can disclose details of the investigation.

The Swiss believed that Mr Abramovich, through Runicom, was one of the controllers of a web of secret caisses noires, usually translated as slush funds, which were operated by associates of the former President, Boris Yeltsin.

For the first time, the Swiss have publicly revealed why they were forced to abandon their investigation. Russia and the United States, it has emerged, refused to divulge what they knew about the scandal. . .

As a wall of silence was erected from Moscow to Washington, the investigation was marred by violent intimidation. Laurent Kasper-Ansermet, the investigating magistrate who launched the Swiss investigation, was left bleeding and unconscious in an attack in St Petersburg during a visit to Russia.

http://avantgo.thetimes.co.uk/services/avantgo/article/0,,1218620,00.html

[voros]

tell the guy who wrote the article that the 1960s are over. Virtually every single title since then has been won with bought talent.

Why is having a chairman pumping money in less acceptable than a club having tens of millions to spend because they've turned themselves into an exploitative global brand?
Because he's one of those damn foreigners...

About the only thing I agree with (and that only partly), I'm really not a big fan of a single owner owning multiple clubs. Yes if they don't face each other in competitive matches, this mitigates that somewhat, but still I think it is a bad idea long term. That may sound funny coming from an MLS fan, but I disapprove of it in MLS as well.

The worst case scenario of this I know of, was an American baseball team, the infamous Cleveland Spiders:

http://www.wcnet.org/~dlfleitz/cleve.htm

[nicephoras]

Any Cleveland Spidres reference deserves rep!

As to the point.......any article that suggests Roman is trying to launder money via Chelsea should be immediately discounted because it means the author doesn't know the first thing about finance. You launder money by purchasing easily resellable liquid assets and immediately flipping them in legitimate markets. Football clubs/players are the exact opposites of that. If he's trying to launder money through Chelsea, he's the dumbest man alive.
As for how he made his money - yes, there is a lot of corruption in Russia. Anyone who's ever contemplated doing business there knows it. No, not all of his actions were legitimate. So what? The allegations he killed anyone are just that - allegations. They're easy to make and Russian foreigners are easier targets for them.

Is Roman some kind of a saint? Of course not. Is he evil? No. He's a man with a very expensive toy. Like, say, Florentino Perez. (Say, how about selling training grounds for 200M?) Like, say, the Agnellis. Or Berlusconi. Hell, Berlusconi has been tried on corruption charges and his associates have been found culpable. But I don't see stories about his signings are ruining the game.
But - whatever. If it makes you happier to think he's about to be arrested in Russia, feel that way. He won't, since the Russian political scene is a bit more complicated than that. But you'd also be disappointed. Only one self-righteous Russian oligarch has actually been detained in Russia, and all others whom Russia wanted to arrest were denied extradition. Plus, most of Roman's wealth has been diversified ages ago. If he has to leave Russia, don't you worry. He won't go belly up.

[Teso Dos Bichos]

I would have thought that the now rejuvenated transfer market would be a perfect location.

[nicephoras]

I would have thought that the now rejuvenated transfer market would be a perfect location.

That's because you wouldn't understand economics if Adam Smith slapped you with his invisible hand.
Chelsea, due to the market's knowledge, overpay for players. Thus, if they can't resell players for more than they pay for them, they actually LOSE money in the process. Considering they've let players leave for free (Hasselbaink, Babayaro, etc.) or have loaned them (Veron, Crespo) how could they possibly launder money? A player's contract is not a liquid asset!

[Acronym]

fck me nearly 10,000 posts? You need to get out more mate LOL.