Chelsea Football Club was plunged into chaos on Thursday with the news that the U.K. government has imposed sanctions on its owner, Roman Abramovich. He was one of 204 individuals named in the list of sanctions, along with 65 organizations. Although the club has been granted a special license until the end of May to allow it to fulfill its remaining fixtures this season, it will be functioning under major restrictions.
Although the threat of sanctions has been looming since Russia invaded Ukraine 15 days ago, leading Abramovich initially to offer to hand over “stewardship and care” of the club to its trustees and then to acknowledge he had to sell, the timing of the move and the scale of the government denouncement of him still came as a shock.