‘World’s most profitable football business’: Abramovich’s frozen Chelsea cash earns £175m

Funds from Roman Abramovich’s sale of Chelsea FC have earned at least £175m in interest while locked in a UK bank account, new accounts show, leading one analyst to describe the company housing the frozen cash as “the most profitable football business in the world”.Accounts for Fordstam, the company through which the billionaire Russian oligarch owned Chelsea, show that the proceeds of the sale completed in May 2022 have risen from £2.3bn to nearly £2.5bn.Abramovich, who was hit with UK sanctions in 2022 over his ties to Vladimir Putin, has previously pledged to donate the money to victims of the war in Ukraine. However, the funds have yet to be released, amid an ongoing legal dispute with the British government about how the money should be used.The picture is further complicated by a separate criminal investigation by the Jersey authorities into the original source of the oil tycoon’s wealth.There is also uncertainty about whether £1.4bn in loans – part of a vast network of offshore companies that the oligarch used to fund Chelsea’s success – will be deducted from the final sum available for donation.In the meantime, the money, an initial £2.35bn, has been accruing interest rapidly, earning £114m in 2024 and nearly £63m the year before that. The total is likely to have risen significantly because another two years have elapsed since June 2024, the latest date covered by the accounts.Stefan Borson, a football finance expert who is head of sport at the law firm McCarthy Denning, said: “With the interest received, this now appears to be the most profitable football-related business in the world,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to the lack of profitability among high-spending football clubs.“It sheds no further insight as to what progress (or otherwise) has been made in distributing the proceeds of the sale.”The £2.5bn proceeds remain frozen in a Barclays bank account owing to a dispute with the UK government, which pledged to take legal action after Abramovich missed a March 2026 deadline to free up the funds.The government wants the money to be earmarked for Ukraine but, according to reports, Abramovich is prepared to defy ministers by giving it to a foundation with a more global outlook.A government spokesperson said: “We have been clear from the start that the proceeds of the sale of Chelsea FC must be used for humanitarian causes in Ukraine. Roman Abramovich has yet to fulfil the commitment made at the time of the sale. The government is taking further steps to ensure that promise is kept, including continuing preparations for potential legal action if necessary.“Our absolute priority remains ensuring the funds reach the most vulnerable in Ukraine who have endured over four years of relentless suffering.”It is also unclear whether the donation will be reduced by any demand from Abramovich that Fordstam repays £1.4bn in loans extended by his Camberley International Investment vehicle, based in Jersey.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It’s always been vague as to whether Abramovich was going to donate the whole sale proceeds to the Ukraine relief fund or just the profits,” said a football finance expert, Kieran Maguire.“The sum due to his offshore company is still in the accounts which suggests the latter.”The future of the loan is further complicated by two factors.As long as Abramovich is under sanctions, the money cannot legally be repaid to him without a licence from the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of the Treasury.At the same time, prosecutors in Jersey are investigating whether the proceeds of the Chelsea sale amount to the proceeds of crime, as part of a corruption and money-laundering investigation. The inquiry is looking at the source of much of Abramovich’s wealth, including the sale of his oil and gas company Sibneft, which the Russian government acquired for $13bn in 2005.The Guardian approached lawyers for Roman Abramovich for comment.