Seriously help me out here guys. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
Yesterday, the Chelsea owner (A rich Russian…supposedly oligarch) changed his position to protect his assets. Fine. Understandable. Its a business decision. I don’t quite understand why he has to. He hasn’t done anything different today then he did a week ago. If one feels he actually directed the invasion then pass a law and take him to court.
But today I wake up to an English NBC Sports video titled “Chelsea embarassing statement”
In it we see:
1, Chelsea make statement standing with Ukraine
Owner makes statement explaining his stepping down
Govt. MP says “Unless Abramovich makes an apology and condemns the Ukraine invasion, I will continue to seek to freeze and seize his assets” (???)
I thought THIS was the embarassing statement! That a govt. official is seeking “compelled speech from a private citizen” and if he doesn’t get it, he will seize his assets?
And the announcers seemed fine with this? They went on to say “If Chelsea win today, will they and should they celebrate?”
Ami going crazy?? What the **** is going on?? This is crazier then almost all the Covid shit in the last two years. Should they celebrate? They didnt do anything they hadnt done two weeks ago. Should they wear sackcloth and flog each other? Liverpool sure as **** will celebrate if they win. So this isn’t any kind of “Do we have a right to enjoy life when terrible things are happening thing”
Will England celebrate if they win a game in Qatar? Im sure they will. Did George Steinbrenner apologize for the US being in Iraq? Does Newcastle with their Saudi owners grovel when they win a game?
Hopefully the mods don’t move this cause its already bigger then this and deserves its own sports thread. Poland has already said they won’t play Russia in a World Cup play-in game. So are you going to forfeit Poland? You’re going to assume Russia will be kicked out of the WC? Will Ukraine (who also has a play-in game) be handed a spot out of sympathy? I’m not a big fan of punishing people for their nationality. I wasn’t in 2001 and I’m not now.
Well, you’re hitting a lot of different topics there.
Under normal circumstances I’d agree that blaming a private citizen for the actions of his government is unethical. However, Russian governance is not exactly the same as it is in most places; oligarchs like Abramovich basically ARE the government.
I’m not saying relieving Abramovich of his football team without compensation is the right thing to do; it is, if nothing else, a bad precedent to set. However, the influence and petetration of Putin billionaire allies into Western nations is worth re-examining.
To bring it back to sports, what I think will have to happen is sports leagues are going to have to be more careful about whom they allow to own franchises. Abramovich is a stain on the EPL (his decision to hand off the reins is helpful, though.)
Thank you, that helps clear it up a little. I have reactions, but realize it will veer it even further from sports. So to stay on topic:
The Champions League final has already been moved out of Russia. I feel thats the right thing to do just for security purposes. But think its premature for teams to already start saying they wont play this team or that team.
Im not a fan of exerting political pressure on sports governing bodies. Its messy. It sets and has set bad precedents in the past. You start asking sports governing bodies to make moral decisions. Sure, this one may seem easier then others, but it can get messy.
I feel like FIFA has to make a stand. Make Poland and Russia play at neutral sites with no fans if you have to…I don’t know why I’m expending so much mental energy juggling scenarios…its not like FIFA are this moral body of work.
If they let Poland do this then, I’m sure they will just kick Russia out of the WC to avoid the whole mess.
Nitpick: The MP concerned is Chris Bryant. He is not a government official; he is a Member of Parliament. And he is of the opposition party, not the government party.
The comment needs to be put in the context of long-standing disquiet in the UK about the way in which Russian oligarchs and kleptocrats use London to launder their money. They basically buy UK residence and, in due course, UK citizenship under a cash-for-visas scheme, invest hugely in UK assets (Chelsea FC is a UK asset in which Abramovich has invested) and make substantial donations to the governing party in order to secure influence and keep the government sweet. .
This arrangement has been criticised for a long time but little or nothing has been done about it. But with the invasion of Ukraine it is coming under real pressure. (In fact, I think, the cash-for-visas scheme was officially withdrawn yesterday, at least for Russian citizens.)
Some updates. FIFA has suggested that Russia play behind closed doors at a neutral site, not be called Russia but some knock off name. Not fly their flag and not play their anthem. Shit, why don’t you have them walk to the stadium in the nude while you’re at it. These arn’t cheating olympians.
The other countries are having none of it.
Bayern player Lewandoski said, “While the Russian team and their fans are blameless, we can’t pretend nothing has happened.”…Personally i feel if people who were shooting at each other one second and then play football the next (Christmas WW1 truce) can do so, then you can play football with some blameless Russian players, Robert.
Now if you want to cancel ALL international games, that I might see better.
I don’t care very much about football. It’s intrinsically unimportant.
But I think the point about representative teams are that they are, well, representative. Russia’s actions in the Ukraine are naturally attracting international odium and we must expect some of that to affect Russia’s representatives. On a personal level this is most unfortunate for those talented Russian footballers who have the opportunity to represent their country, but the significance of the Russian football team is not the individual players who happen to be on the squad but the country which the team represents. This is a country which has to expect its international standing and relationships to be severely damaged by what it is doing in Ukraine and, inevitably, that is going to impact adversely on those who represent the country.
The whole British government has been funded by Russian oligarchs (literally hundreds) for the last ten years. Abramovich is pretty much the most famous by far (others include one ( Lebedev) which our Prime Minister shook his bodyguards, and went to a sex Party in Italy, but he’s not half as famous). Chelsea football team was bought basically off stolen cash, the same way other dictators siphoned off their countries money into Swiss bank accounts. The oligarchs accounts are in British Protectorates (Belize, Isle of Man, Jersey Islands). Brexit in itself seems to be mainly to keep Britain’s position as head of the worlds money laundering tree and happened pretty much as a reaction to the EU cracking down on money laundering. Funded by dark money from UAE and Russia.
The oligarchs also seem to be the ones owning huge swathes of property in central london, there’s big chunks of ghost town there, owned for safe haven of laundered cash, unoccupied. More than just oligarchs, the worlds money laundered ends up there…
Getting Chelsea to apologise is basically a diversion from the fundamental problems of the UK as it currently happens. Our media is pliant. It shouts “No, don’t look there. LOOK OVER HERE”.
Yes, Russia is not allowed to play in any international hockey tournaments at all age groups going forward.
This is good. Sports is important to the government in Russia. And it will send a message to the Russian public, who are being filled with garbage information at the moment.
And in terms of ownership of properties and businesses by Russian oligarchs… As RickJay says above, in many ways, these billionaires ARE the Russian government, or a least a large influential part of it. I say, remove their companies and have them keep running, but at arms length. Tell them that their residences are now required to house Ukraine refugees.
They can have their businesses and residences back once the Russian army is out of Ukraine, and Putin is in the hands of the international court in the Hague for war crimes. Let them figure out how they’re going to accomplish this.
Just think of how much money they’re going to save on performance-enhancing drugs, though! It might be enough to overcome all the rest of the sanctions combined.
This thread was started in the Game Room, because it was for a specific sports-related implication of the Ukraine invasion. Meanwhile, though, one the one hand we already have another thread about FIFA kicking Russia out of events, which seems to be branching out to other sports and staying on the topic of sports, and on the other hand this one is now drifting to non-sports topics. I think it’s simplest at this point to just close this one.