EPL: Reasons Abramovich Has Not Been Sanctioned Amid Link To Putin – Boris Johnson

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has revealed why Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, is yet to be sanctioned amid his alleged link to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Johnson says the UK government must carry out ‘due process’ before sanctioning Abramovich, who had denied links with Putin, to avoid being met by a ‘brick wall of lawyers’.

Recall that there have been growing calls for Abramovich, who has owned Chelsea since 2003, to be included in the economic measures being taken against Russians who are said to have ties to Putin following the invasion of Ukraine.

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Asked why Abramovich has not been sanctioned, Johnson told Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Friday: “None of us wants to live in a country where the state can take your house off you without a very high burden of proof and due process.

“There’s no point saying, yeah, we are going to go after him, and then you come up against the brick wall of lawyers. So we have to get it right.

“We are also trying not to just make this about one individual. The top line of what our package on Monday will do is that the measures that you have against individual oligarchs in Europe will essentially allow us to catch them too.

“Plus the extra things that we are doing that Europe hasn’t caught up with or is not prepared to do, like Swift.”