NEW YORK — When Chris Bryant stood up in Parliament on Feb. 24 to push for action amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he wasn’t thinking much about English soccer. Bryant, a member of Parliament representing the Welsh constituency of the Rhondda, had long been a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his orbiting oligarchs. Now, Bryant said, he had new reasons to be suspicious of those oligarchs’ influence in the United Kingdom.
Dating from 2019, the documents were from the Home Office, the U.K. government body responsible in part for immigration and crime. They dealt with Roman Abramovich, the owner of English Premier League powerhouse Chelsea and likely the country’s most famous oligarch.