{"id":136307,"date":"2025-09-11T23:02:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T23:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/136307\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T23:02:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T23:02:41","slug":"chelsea-face-74-football-association-charges-over-agent-payments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/136307\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea face 74 Football Association charges over agent payments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK<\/a> government in March 2022 over alleged links to Russian president Vladimir Putin – something he has denied.<\/p>\n

He was granted a special licence to sell Chelsea following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, providing he could prove he would not benefit from the sale.<\/p>\n

The 58-year-old said funds from the sale would be donated via a foundation “for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine”, which would include those in Russia.<\/p>\n

The \u00a32.5bn in proceeds have been frozen in a UK bank account since the sale – Abramovich does not have access to the money but it still legally belongs to him.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the BBC reported that leaked documents revealed a money trail linking Abramovich to two men dubbed “wallets” of Putin.<\/p>\n

BBC Newsnight, BBC Verify and Panorama partnered with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to uncover the revelations as part of Cyprus Confidential – a global investigation led by reporters at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Paper Trail Media.<\/p>\n

The reports alleged that the leaked documents from Cyprus revealed new evidence linking the former Chelsea owner to a secret \u00a326m deal<\/a> in 2010.<\/p>\n

Abramovich has previously denied any financial relationship with the Russian leader.<\/p>\n

In June, the Government threatened to sue Abramovich<\/a> to make sure the money from the Chelsea sale goes to Ukrainian humanitarian aid – rather than “all victims of the war in Ukraine” as Abramovich had said.<\/p>\n

Two months before selling Chelsea in May 2022, Abramovich was said to have suffered from suspected poisoning<\/a> at peace talks on the Ukraine-Belarus border. <\/p>\n

The Russian billionaire, who made his fortune in oil and gas, was reported to have a role as a broker in talks between Ukraine and Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government in March 2022 over alleged links to Russian president Vladimir Putin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-136307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}