The United Kingdom imposed sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs on Thursday, including Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of English soccer team Chelsea FC, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The seven oligarchs will have their assets frozen and have been hit with a travel ban, among other measures the sanctions will impose.
“As part of the U.K.’s leading efforts to isolate Putin and those around him, these oligarchs — who have a collective net worth of around £15 billion — will have their assets in the U.K. frozen, they are banned from travelling here and no U.K. citizen or company may do business with them,” the British government said in a statement.
The seven oligarchs sanctioned are Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea FC and a shareholder in steel company Evraz and Norilsk Nickel; Oleg Deripaska, a shareholder in energy and metal company En+ Group; Igor Sechin, the chief executive of oil company Rosneft; Alexei Miller, CEO of energy company Gazprom; Nikolai Tokarev, the president of the Russia state-owned pipeline company Transneft; and Dmitri Lebedev, the chairman of the board of Bank Rossiya.
ROMAN ABRAMOVICH TO SELL CHELSEA FOOTBALL CLUB
The U.K. government is granting Chelsea FC a special license to allow the team to continue certain soccer-related activities, including playing games, but under the terms of the license, the sale of players, new tickets to games, and merchandise are prohibited.
“Given the significant impact that today’s sanctions would have on Chelsea football club and the potential knock-on effects of this, the Government has this morning published a licence which authorises a number of football-related activities to continue at Chelsea. This includes permissions for the club to continue playing matches and other football-related activity which will in turn protect the Premier League, the wider football pyramid, loyal fans, and other clubs,” the U.K. government said in its statement announcing the sanctions.
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Abramovich announced last week that he would put Chelsea FC up for sale.
In a statement on March 2, Abramovich said that in “the current situation,” selling the team would be “in the best interest of the Club, the fans, the employees, as well as the Club’s sponsors and partners.”
The sanctions imposed by Britain would bar a sale of the team, according to a report.
