Manchester United gaffer, Ralf Rangnick, on Friday delved into the realm of politics when he called for the sanctioning of Arsenal and Everton, following UK government’s embargoes on Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich.
On Thursday, Abramovich’s assets were frozen by the UK government due to his links to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who ordered a military invasion of Ukraine.
The sanction has adversely affected the West London club, as they are currently unable to sell new tickets or merchandise and cannot offer new contracts to players.
The severity of the punishment was confirmed by Chelsea legend, Pat Nevin who claimed that the club has already begun “partially laying off” some of their staff.
He said: “Considering whether people at the club can continue to be paid, I can tell you now that some of the people have been partially laid off already, so they will not be working”
Rangnick, whose team is next to Arsenal on the log table and play Spurs on Sunday while speaking to the media on Friday, suggested Arsenal and Everton should have been punished too since Russian oligarchs own shares in the clubs.
“Not only at Chelsea, [but] also at Arsenal and Everton there were ownership shares by Russian oligarchs.
“This (Chelsea) was not the only club,” Rangnick said.
Evertons’ Russian link can be traced to commercial sponsorship arrangements with the Russian companies USM, Megafon, and Yota.
Their current owner, Farhad Moshiri, a British-Iranian businessman is also the chairman and a shareholder in USM, a diversified Russian holding company.
Arsenal, on the other hand, have Uzbek-born Russian, Alisher Usmanov as one of their shareholders, but the controlling shares belong to 74-year-old American billionaire businessman Stan Kroenke.