Sanctioning Roman Abramovich will change football forever

With refugees fleeing Ukraine, shells raining down on civilians, and threats of chemical weapons being used on the battlefields of Ukraine, it was surely only a matter of time. Today the British government finally added Roman Abramovich to the list of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, freezing his assets, and making sure that he could not profit from any sales. That will impact his entire fortune, of course. But most of all, it will hit Chelsea Football Club – and radically re-shape the fortunes of the Premier League.

In the two decades since a then relatively unknown Russian tycoon took control of Chelsea, the economics of the game have been completely transformed. What was once a fairly ramshackle organisation, run by local businessmen driven by sentiment more than anything else, has been turned into a contest between different regimes or their proxies.