Find out how a bizarre phone call from Romelu Lukaku, a minibus, a Tour de France winning bike and an impossible deadline played their part in the saga
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By KIERAN GILL
Published: 21:00 EDT, 9 June 2025 | Updated: 21:00 EDT, 9 June 2025
Roman Abramovich’s trusted aide Marina Granovskaia was ready to play what would have been possibly the riskiest game of chicken ever by ignoring the May 31, 2022 deadline set by the UK Government for Chelsea Football Club to be sold – or else.
We will never know how serious they were, whether Boris Johnson’s administration would truly have allowed one of the game’s global giants to go into oblivion.
But Granovskaia was not buying it in the March of that year, despite Abramovich being sanctioned after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for having suspected ties to Vladimir Putin and a temporary chokehold placed on Chelsea which meant they were not permitted to sell tickets to matches.
That is according to a new book released today, called Sanctioned: The Inside Story of the Sale of Chelsea FC, which reveals how Granovskaia believed they could call their bluff and tell them the timescale was absurd when a sale of this size might usually take 12 months with due diligence, not three.
Her willingness to gamble was not shared as enthusiastically by her fellow Chelsea executives, it is claimed, however, with some sources within the Government insisting they were prepared to see the situation through, potentially all the way to the club’s collapse.
This was not a game of negotiating a fee, like when Granovskaia brought Fernando Torres to Chelsea from Liverpool for £50million in her first window as Abramovich’s transfer lead in 2011. That risk was trivial by comparison. If it went wrong this time, the repercussions could have been catastrophic for Chelsea, much worse than Torres becoming their British-record flop.
Roman Abramovich was sanctioned after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for having suspected ties to Vladimir Putin
Marina Granovskaia (right) was ready to ignore the May 31, 2022 deadline set by the UK Government for Chelsea Football Club to be sold
In the end, the consensus was they could not chance it, and so began the rush, with 20-hour working days becoming the norm.
They had less than three months to ensure Chelsea would not cease to exist with the government’s hard deadline of May 31 looming large, and it is this warts-and-all story which is told in full in Sanctioned, written by Nick Purewal.
Abramovich himself agreed to be interviewed for the book twice – once in Istanbul in January 2024, and again in Abu Dhabi in January 2025 – as he breaks his silence for the first time since being forced into selling up.
He is not quoted extensively, save for a few paragraphs in the epilogue, though the detail in the author’s stories is in depth and seemingly sourced via those who were at the beating heart of this saga from start to finish.
It paints a positive picture of Abramovich, portraying him as a neutral peacemaker working covertly on a mediation mission from the moment of Russia’s invasion, with the billionaire navigating live war zones in travelling by road convoy through Poland and into Ukraine with gunfire and rocket shelling as his soundtrack.
It was after one such round of Abramovich brokering talks in Kyiv that he retired to an apartment where food had been left on the dining table for him and his two aides. There, however, he was soon struck by searing pain as he lost consciousness.
When he woke, he could not see, with symptoms also including peeling skin and shedding hair as they travelled to a nearby hospital, convincing the soldiers guarding the facility that they were civilians in need of genuine help. Abramovich’s vision has never returned to what it was, apparently.
This poisoning coincided with Chelsea facing Luton in the FA Cup fifth round on March 2, 2022. The build-up to that fixture was overshadowed by a statement suddenly released by Abramovich revealing he was putting the Premier League club up for sale.
The build-up to Chelsea's FA Cup tie at Luton was overshadowed by a statement suddenly released by Abramovich revealing he was putting the Premier League club up for sale
Abramovich is portrayed as a neutral peacemaker working covertly on a mediation mission from the moment of Russia’s invasion
It was hurriedly drafted in less than 30 minutes by two of his aides, who set up a makeshift office on the floor of Heathrow Airport's arrivals hall after they had landed back in London to his orders.
It included the pledge that all proceeds would be donated to victims of the Ukraine war, though as we know, this remains a controversial and live issue today.
There was no advance warning for Chelsea’s coaches and squad of that announcement. They broke away from their pre-match preparations in shock, and Petr Cech, then working in an executive role, had to deliver a speech in the Kenilworth Road changing room. He told the team to control only what they could: by securing a win which would instantly improve all of their moods.
Thomas Tuchel’s side won 3-2. Tuchel, and the women’s head coach Emma Hayes, both handled this entire episode with dignity as they spent the following months answering questions on a topic much bigger than themselves.
Tuchel even offered to drive the players on a minibus to games when the Government's restrictions included a £20,000 cap on away-day spending – roughly half the standard Premier League outlay for such trips.
There are claims that Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky privately urged the UK Government to refrain from sanctioning Abramovich, explaining how he was working as their go-between. The book adds how Ukrainian delegates credit the billionaire with helping create humanitarian corridors which saved the lives of thousands of civilians in war-torn areas such as Mariupol.
Abramovich was sanctioned nonetheless, and there is one anecdote which provides insight into the impact it had on him personally, even if it is a trivial one compared to the brutality of the conflict in Ukraine and the threat of extinction that Chelsea were facing at the time.
After Chelsea had won the Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates in February 2022, Abramovich received a present from members of the Abu Dhabi royal family at an afterparty. They had done their homework in discovering his love for cycling, and so gifted him a team bike that had been ridden by Tadej Pogacar during the UAE Team Emirates’ Tour de France triumph in 2020.
Thomas Tuchel even offered to drive the players on a minibus to games when the Government's restrictions included a £20,000 cap on away-day spending
There are claims that Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky privately urged the UK Government to refrain from sanctioning Abramovich
After Chelsea had won the Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates in February 2022, Abramovich received a gift of Tadej Pogacar's Tour de France-winning bike
Abramovich took it back to London with him on his private jet – but there it stayed as the sanctions were imposed on the billionaire, suddenly rendering it out of reach. As you can imagine, that is one of the only light-hearted stories in Sanctioned.
The lexicon of football language has long been littered with war terminology. It’s a ‘battle’. It’s a ‘blitz’. You can have a ‘war cry’ in the changing room or a ‘war chest’ in the boardroom.
A striker ‘pulls the trigger’, and a goalkeeper repels ‘rockets'. A manager can ‘drop a bomb’ at his press conference, if those of us covering it for the next day’s newspaper are lucky, anyway.
There is nothing like reading 299 pages on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and how closely Chelsea came to being collateral damage, to make those comparisons suddenly seem flippant.
Raine were the US bank tasked with handling the sale of Chelsea to the backdrop of war unfolding elsewhere, and initially, they received 280 expressions of interest which needed whittling down to 50 and then four, which became three.
Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital chiefs Behdad Eghbali and Jose E Feliciano had agreed early on in March 2022 that they should become partners over breakfast at Beverly Hills’ Maybourne Hotel.
Three months later, they were the winners, having navigated their way through an ultra-complicated process which included Sir Jim Ratcliffe apparently attempting his own smash-and-grab raid as the May 31 deadline approached.
Ratcliffe’s theatrics in telling Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck in a last-minute meeting at Stamford Bridge that he had a piece of paper in his breast pocket with an offer consisting purely of British money seemingly did not go down well with his rival bidders.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s theatrics in offering to buy Chelsea in a last-minute meeting at Stamford Bridge seemingly did not go down well with his rival bidders
It is claimed the first call fielded by Boehly on Chelsea after his consortium had purchased the Premier League club came from the representatives of Romelu Lukaku, saying he was off
Todd Boehly, Behdad Eghbali and Jose E Feliciano (not pictured) had agreed early on in March 2022 that they should become partners
Boehly and Clearlake were already the frontrunners by this stage, and had they decided to withdraw their bid at any stage, it is noted how Chelsea would have risked being ruined.
It is claimed the first call fielded by Boehly on Chelsea after his consortium had purchased the Premier League club came from the representatives of Romelu Lukaku. It was to inform him that the Belgium striker would not be staying at Stamford Bridge under any circumstances.
Which can feel strange, the conversation suddenly going back to football matters after three months of complete chaos in the aftermath of Abramovich announcing his intention to sell his beloved Blues.
But then, in a nice way, that call to confirm Lukaku’s stance represented normality, which is all that Chelsea ever wanted after their very existence as a giant of the English game was threatened.