Ex-Abramovich club pays
Donetsk’s record millions flow to Mariupol defenders
01/16/2023, 7:47 p.m
After the record transfer of attacking player Mykhailo Mudryk to Chelsea, Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of Shakhtar Donetsk, creates a fund for the defenders of the city of Mariupol. It’s not the first donation from Ukraine’s richest man.
Shakhtar Donetsk wrote Ukrainian football history with the transfer of Mykhailo Mudryk to Chelsea on Sunday. The €100m fee, split into €70m plus 30m in bonuses, is the highest ever paid for a Premier League player in the country, well above the €59m Manchester United paid for Brazilian Fred in 2018. The Donbass club will use part of the record sum to alleviate the suffering of Ukrainian forces in Mariupol.
“Today I am providing one billion hryvnia (the equivalent of around 23.5 million euros) to help our fighters and defenders and also their families,” said Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of the top Ukrainian club, on the club’s website. The money should be used for medical treatment, psychological care, prostheses and other things.
The southeastern Ukrainian port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov was captured by Russian troops in spring 2022, just a few months after the start of the war, and large parts were destroyed in the process. Akhmetov’s corporate empire was based largely on the Mariupol steelworks, where the last Ukrainian soldiers held out for weeks at the time. “We are forever indebted to our defenders!” said the 56-year-old. His new fund should be called “Heart of Azovstal”.
What happened to the Abramovich billions?
Chelsea, parts of which will now go to Ukrainian forces, was owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich well into 2022. However, after Russia’s attack on Ukraine from February 24 last year, the oligarch was soon forced to withdraw from the English Premier League to ensure the survival of his heart’s club. Western sanctions left him no other choice. In the summer, the traditional English club became the property of a consortium led by US billionaire Todd Boehly.
Abramovich announced that the proceeds from the sale, around 2.8 billion euros, would be donated to victims of the war in Ukraine via a foundation. Whether this has already happened remains unclear. “An independent foundation will be set up by humanitarian experts to manage and distribute the proceeds from the sale of Chelsea FC for humanitarian causes in Ukraine. The foundation will be set up by Mike Penrose, former Executive Director of UNICEF UK,” it said British Foreign Office mid-November 2015 with
Meanwhile, new Chelsea owner Todd Boehly’s desire for change cost Thomas Tuchel his job in the fall, barely twelve months after winning the Champions League. Under the Tuchel successor Graham Potter, the Londoners are currently wandering through the Premier League, have also already been eliminated from the national cup competitions and are currently throwing money around in order to at least get past the round of 16 in the Champions League. In Europe’s premier class, it’s February and March against Borussia Dortmund, who are also desperately looking for success.
Akhmetov largest single donor in Ukraine
The erratic transfer policy of the Blues under Boehly, with expenditures of over 400 million euros in the current season, means that Chelsea – and not local rivals Arsenal, who have long been favorites – were awarded the contract for the 22-year-old Ukrainian. “I have mixed feelings today. Because on the one hand I’m proud of Mykhailo, who showed that with hard work you can make the impossible possible,” said Akhmetov: “On the other hand, I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I won trophies in Europe with Wants to attract players like Mykhailo instead of training them for other top clubs.”
But that is currently not possible due to the war that drove Shakhtar out of Donetsk in 2014. “I’m sure we’ll win. And then we’ll play a friendly against Chelsea. At the Donbass Arena in Donetsk, Ukraine,” said Akhmetov, one of the Ukrainian army’s biggest single donors. Including the sum from the Mudryk transfer, the aid of Akhmetov’s companies in the humanitarian and military areas is said to be almost 110 million euros, according to reports from Ukraine.