Abramovich is but one in a long list of tainted owners. Is there no end to sportswashing?
Roman Abramovich is not unusual. This is worth emphasising. Rich as he may be, and as politically connected as befits an ex-governor of a Russian province, Abramovich’s 18 years as owner of Chelsea is just the best known example of the ways in which economic power and political actors have come to shape and dominate global football.
Consider, beyond Abramovich, how Vladimir Putin’s regime has used the game. Russia’s leading clubs have been allocated to allied oligarchs, state companies and local warlords, such as Chechnya’s president, Ramzan Kadyrov. Football ultras have been recruited as muscle for ersatz youth movements and intimidating political opponents. Other pliant, unsanctioned oligarchs who still own foreign clubs include Dmitry Rybolovlev at Monaco and Club Brugge and Ivan Savvidis, president of Thessaloniki’s PAOK.
State-owned Gazprom has sponsored Fifa and Uefa, as well as Chelsea, Schalke 04 and Red Star Belgrade, three clubs in politically important markets for the company. And, the jewel in the crown, Russia won the hosting rights to the 2018 World Cup and put on a sporting Potemkin village that obscured both domestic protest over its disastrous pension reforms, and its own international malevolence.
Russia is not alone in this. In the past 20 years, football, never short of political suitors, has in much of the world been colonised by political power and projects. Why have the world’s states, politicians and political movements shown such an unprecedented interest in the game?
Money is a factor for some. Consider the former Honduran president Rafael Callejas, who attempted to financially secure his retirement by becoming the president of the Honduran Football Association, an institution even more corrupt and
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