Context for people unfamiliar with football/soccer: Roman Abramovich is a Russian oligarch who grew rich in the 90s by buying state owned companies at rigged au

Context for people unfamiliar with football/soccer: Roman Abramovich is a Russian oligarch who grew rich in the 90s by buying state owned companies at rigged auctions. He was close to the previous President Yeltsin and allegedly recommended that Yeltsin appoint Putin as his successor. His relations with Putin have remained cordial with Putin unlike some other oligarchs like Mikhail Khordokovsky, who crossed Putin and lost everything. Around the same time Abramovich used the proceeds of his dealings in Russia to buy London based football club Chelsea. It was speculated he wanted a productive asset that would be beyond Putin’s reach as well as building up a public profile so he couldn’t be disappeared like Khordokovsky. In the last 20 years, he has loaned around £1.5 billion of his money to the club because it made losses most of the time he owned it. This despite winning almost all available trophies at least once during that period. Still a sound investment, because the club he bought for £140 million is worth at least £2.5 billion today. There’s a few interesting things we can infer from this statement where he says he’s selling the club and giving all proceeds to victims of the war in Ukraine - Abramovich thinks that the war and sanctions are going to last a while. As someone with access to Putin, he must have realised that Putin isn’t planning to back down, and therefore neither is the US and EU. He can’t ride this one out. - he knows that sanctions are coming for him and most of his US and EU based assets are going to be seized. Might as well say you’re giving them to charity if they’re gone anyway - he retains some measure of control here. A charitable foundation with some trusted members controlling the money is preferable to control by Her Majesty’s Government. Ironic that he got the club to avoid seizure by Putin but it got seized in the end anyway.