Chelsea not for sale!

Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck says owner Roman Abramovich has no interest in selling the club and remains as committed as ever, even though he has not attended any of the last 43 home games.

The Russian oligarch, who bought the club in 2003, has put the brakes on plans of a £1billion redevelopment of Stamford Bridge and is on a third manager since his British visa expired last year.

Issues over Abramovich’s citizenship arose at a time when tensions with Russia were high following the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury in March 2018.

Abramovich has since become an Israeli citizen and attended Chelsea’s Europa League Final victory over Arsenal in Baku last May.

Buck says revealed offers to buy the club have been knocked back and that Abramovich has no plans to cash in.
He said: “I have never heard Mr Abramovich say: ‘Let’s get this ready for a sale’, or something [like that].
“Because of the political situation, there are people who think they might be able to buy Chelsea at a bargain [price]. We do get enquiries and have nothing to say to these people. In terms of him being involved, [Abramovich] was always intimately involved from day one and is just as intimately involved now.

“He talks to Marina [Granovskaia] - the board member who supervises the football operation - several times a day, every day.”


With a transfer ban in place at the club, plans for the stadium shelved and no sign of Abramovich returning to watch a game at Stamford Bridge soon, ­Chelsea could well be in limbo, though Buck insists things could change very quickly.

“It is hard to disprove it [that the club is on hold], except to say: ‘Let’s see what happens in the next transfer window’,” he told The Guardian. “If we go out in the next window and spend a zillion, it’s pretty hard to argue that things are on hold.