Abramovich, Chelsea and how I can finally explain my job in my language!
Roman Abramovich, if you’re a football fan/ football aware, is a fairly well-known figure. Ironic, considering in 12–14 years of knowing and following his storied football team, I’ve heard or seen 3 interviews from the man. On the off chance you’re not…. question your choices, and read on!
Who is he?
The current (unless I publish this too late) owner of Chelsea Football Club, one of England and Europe’s biggest sporting entities over the last two decades, a team I’ve followed with almost manic passion for a long time.
The previously unknown Roman Abramovich purchased Chelsea in 2003, as a Russian oligarch settling into London, as many before and after him have done over the years. Even in the earliest days of #theRomanEmpire, the source of his vast wealth was questioned, with rumored links to the Boris Yeltzin regime and later to the more controversial (circa 2022) Vladimir Putin regime in the Russian Federation.
How did this come about?
Roman famously attended a match at one of football’s iconic grounds — Old Trafford and watched a tête-à-tête between the Brazilian icon Ronaldo and British managerial royalty Sir Alex Ferguson, in a match between Manchester United and Real Madrid, two of football’s largest clubs in history and pedigree.
The energy, passion and mania of an English football game sucked the oligarch in, and he decided to buy a team of his own. As his companies and business interests grew in the London area, two clubs came to his notice: Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. Given their respective fortunes (Chelsea were in dire straits, nearing bankruptcy), the Blues quickly became the more attainable asset. The rest, as they say, is history.
Admittedly, I am a post-Abramovich era fan, of a team that first challenged Arsenal for city supremacy, and then Manchester United for English supremacy and kept their place in the upper echelons of world football, locking horns with all the European giants in the Champions league.
His legacy
Chelsea became a winning machine — a club perhaps built and operated like no other, with winning the only thing that mattered — above systems, processes, emotions and even people. Abramovich instilled an unmistakeable winning mentality right from the ground up at Chelsea, improving training and player welfare facilities to hitherto unseen levels.
His ruthless desire to win saw his beloved club win
- 5 Premier League titles — The first 2 of which were under the tutelage of José Mourinho, instantly making Chelsea the most hated and envied team in the land, for success and braggadocio alike
- 2 UEFA Champions League titles — The pinnacle of European football, fascinatingly won in years where the club employed two head coaches in the same season ( 2012 and 2021)
- 2 UEFA Europa Leagues — Won in years of ‘underperformance’ which also led to coaching departures at the end of their respective seasons
- 5 FA Cups, 3 League Cups and a few others
All in all, 19 trophies in 19 years with oft-dysfunctional teams playing with their backs against the wall, with managerial crisis never too far away.
How does this relate to my job?
I first learned of Sanctions lists in 2018 — when I was scoping out how to build a viable Know Your Business (KYB) process for business clients for my then company Emergent Technology (a Fintech). Later, I’d go on to build and help manage a compliance risk program for their B2C application, exposing me to the world of Know Your Customers(KYC) and Customer Due Diligence requirements as per the Patriot act.
As fate would have it, about 2 and a half years later, I’m the Product owner for Identity Verifications at my current job — at no-code B2B start-up Unit21, where my core responsibilities include building and managing features to help our clients screen their end customers as part of their Customer Due Diligence processes.
A huge part of this is Sanctions (“Watchlist”) screening of each customer that passes through the verification pipeline, in order to ensure no bad actors enter financial rails without being sufficiently vetted. Our partner Socure provides the data sources that we screen against, ensuring safety and trust in the financial world.
Given the current geo-political issues plaguing Russia and Ukraine, Roman Abramovich is likely to be sanctioned by the UK Government, which provides sufficient grounds for officials to seize control of a sanctioned entity’s assets in the country — which, unfortunately for me and millions around the globe, includes the club. He released a statement announcing a sale, ending a glittering, never-before-seen tenure as an owner at the highest level of football.
It’ll be a sad duality going forward, when I have the ability to try and help sell the product I build and believe in — through a demonstration of Roman Abramovich’s name screened against the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI)
3/11/22. The day is here. Roman has been sanctioned. The end of an
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