TWO thousand miles to the south, England’s most famous player was preparing for the match in which he would score his first goal for Real Madrid. Two dozen miles to the east lay Alaska, just across the Bering Strait. Below, through a window overlooking Anadyr Bay, white beluga whales rolled in the water. Yet if the remote peninsula of Chukotka is the most unlikely setting in which to plot a football revolution, nobody these days can afford to take Roman Abramovich anything but very seriously indeed. Today Joe Cole, tomorrow Juan Sebastián Verón and Adrian Mutu; in time, maybe, even David Beckham himself. The world, it seems, is Chelsea’s oyster.
And, for the 36-year-old Russian billionaire, it is going to be fun. He could even laugh away suggestions that he had had a private meeting with Beckham in Moscow this year, but he did not rule out acquiring the England captain eventually. “I have never met him,” he said, “but if he ever considers the possibility of returning to England if he doesn’t make it in Spain . . . I like him.”
Throughout our 1½-hour interview, the man who is known as the most reserved of all the Russian oligarchs toyed with a bright orange golf ball, rolling it around his hands. Abramovich’s gentle tone and modest appearance (dressed in jeans and a dark blue Burberry T-shirt and sporting trademark stubble, he was unaccompanied by bodyguards) were betrayed by his steady gaze, which expressed the single-mindedness that has made him Russia’s second-richest man, estimated to be worth $5.2 billion by Forbes magazine. But his takeover at Stamford Bridge is not just another business venture. Running Chelsea, he says, will be a pleasure. And he is in for the long haul.
His determination to buy a football club stemmed from a sheer love for the game. “I made the final decision about Chelsea after a Manchester United-Real Madrid game at Old Trafford (when Beckham scored twice in United’s 4-3 European Cup quarter-final, second-leg victory in April, the Spanish club progressing 6-5 on aggregate). It was a very beautiful game and I realised I couldn’t pass it by,” he said.
Nor, it seems, could he resist the lure of some of the best young talents in the sport. Before embarking on his latest spending spree he had already sanctioned a total outlay of £37 million to bring in Glen Johnson, Geremi, Damien Duff and Wayne Bridge. It is the make-up of his transfer advisory team, though, that will raise eyebrows: not only Claudio Ranieri, the Chelsea head coach, but also Russian sports journalists and supporters of the West London club. “Their opinion is very important to me,” he said. “They understand more than the press.”
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Two days after buying Chelsea, Abramovich received a letter from a ten-year-old fan. “He described the situation in the team perfectly and three of his five suggestions for new players we were already thinking about,” he said. Abramovich was impressed. “I couldn’t even write at that age.”
Abramovich became governor of Chukotka two years ago. The republic is accessible only by plane and has a population of just 72,000, many of them indigenous tribes such as Chukchi, Eveni and Inuit. The oligarch has his own private Boeing Business Jet 737, painted mustard yellow, and is using video conferencing to mastermind his latest transfer raid, before the first Champions League transfer window closes tomorrow. But while huge sums of money are being spent, the quietly spoken Abramovich visibly relaxes when discussing Chelsea, his eyes shining as he explains why he chose to buy an almost bankrupt British club.
“The English word ‘fun’ sums it up for me,” he said. “It is not about business. I want to be at every match.” He had chosen Chelsea after analysing ten British teams and deciding that, on balance, “the price and quality of Chelsea made it the optimum choice”. And he is willing to commit to another 50 years of ownership. “I see it as a very long-term commitment,” he said, although he refused to disclose the limit on funds he was willing to pour into the club, explaining that by doing so it would push up the price of future contracts. The club’s debts, still in the region of £80 million, were also being resolved.
Yet the new Barclaycard Premiership campaign starts in 11 days’ time and, for all that his arrival has turned the feeling among supporters that Chelsea should challenge the power bases at Old Trafford and Highbury from hope into nothing short of expectation, Abramovich does not expect Chelsea to excel in their first season under his stewardship. “I would love to think it will, but we have made many acquisitions and so it is hard to say if it will be the most successful season in the history of the team,” he said.
“Even the best players don’t immediately make a team. The internal structure of the team has been destroyed and time is needed for the players to play together and only then can you hope for a result.”
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Abramovich has a poor grasp of English and said that this was not going to change for the sake of talking to the players. “My simple English is good enough to talk on the phone with Claudio Ranieri,” he said. “I met the players once during training and we agreed on the necessity of building a new training ground.” There were, he said, no plans for a change of management. Yet that will do little to quell speculation that in time — perhaps after the European Championship finals next summer — Ranieri will make way for Sven-Göran Eriksson, the England head coach. And that, in turn, would only increase the likelihood of Beckham having to make only a short journey from Heathrow should he eventually jet back from Madrid.
Last night, Abramovich relaxed in Anadyr’s only nightclub, sipping chilled mineral water on an enormous black leather sofa in a back room. He claims not to care what other people think of him, yet just as he saved Chelsea from possible financial ruin, he has salvaged Chukotka, a region on the brink of total collapse after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
His enthusiasm for football is soon to be felt by the Russians as well. Plans are under way for a stadium in Moscow for three local teams, funded by Abramovich — also “for fun” rather than business. In the long term, he would like to bring Chelsea over for a “friendly game”. The “Chelski” story has a long way to run, it seems.