[FREE TO READ] Roman Abramovich: Charity set up to oversee frozen £2.35bn from Chelsea sale

A new charitable foundation aimed at breaking the deadlock between Roman Abramovich and the UK government over the frozen £2.35billion from the sale of Chelsea has formally submitted its application to the UK Charity Commission.

The Foundation for the Victims of Conflict, as it has been named, will be overseen by Mike Penrose, a former UNICEF executive, and includes several other high-profile trustees.

This application comes at a time when Abramovich and the UK government are still locked in disagreement regarding how the £2.35bn ($3.12bn at current rates) should be spent.

The UK government has long maintained that the proceeds from the Chelsea sale to BlueCo, a consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, in May 2022 will remain frozen unless Abramovich signs off on it only being spent in Ukraine.

But the new foundation’s intention is for the money to be spent on global causes — as evidenced by the trustees it has appointed — instead of being limited to Ukraine and Ukrainian victims of the Russian war.