Roman Abramovich's frozen Chelsea money may start flowing to help victims of the war in Ukraine next month. This was reported by The Times.
Next week will mark a year since Chelsea was sold to a consortium led by Todd Boly. The £2.35 billion is still in the bank account of Abramovich's Fordstam company, which was frozen by the British government after sanctions were imposed on it over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The sale of Chelsea was approved by the government on the basis that the money would go to war victims.
Mike Penrose, the former chief executive of Unicef UK, admitted that the process of getting the money allocated for good causes took much longer than he had anticipated. Once the British government issues a licence to allow the frozen funds to be transferred to the foundation, Fordstam, where Abramovich is still named as a person with significant control, will have to "push a button" to transfer the money.
"We believe we are in the final stages - next week will be the one-year anniversary, and we hope that by then we will be able to resolve all the legal issues. It was also a challenge last year to deal with three different [British] governments because you have to deal with new people every time, and it's very difficult.
It took a lot longer than expected because of these complexities and the bureaucracy involved with multiple jurisdictions, but now everything is ready, we are just waiting. The money is still there, there is still plenty of it, and I am very confident that the deal will be done. We have a world-class board, and we have some initial programmes in place related to health, housing, education and agriculture, so we can start very quickly," Penrose said.
