Oligarch Abramovich financed Vitesse – NRC

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who has been on the European sanctions list since 2022, is still financially involved with football club Vitesse. The tens of millions with which the current Russian owner has financed Vitesse in recent years almost entirely come from Abramovich.

This is evident from research by the British journalistic research platform TBIJ and The Guardian in association with NRC, Fidelity and The Financial Times to the financial administration of the current owner of Vitesse. The documents came into the hands of the international journalist collective ICIJ.

The revelations come at a difficult time for Vitesse. Last March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs wrote to Vitesse that the club may fall under sanctions legislation due to the close relationship between the oligarch Abramovich and the current owner, the Russian Valeriy Oyf. According to the ministry, Abramovich has actual control over the club.

This prompted the KNVB licensing committee to demand that the club definitively sever ties with owner Oyf by mid-May at the latest. If this does not work, Vitesse’s professional license will be revoked.

Annual reports and loan agreements now show that Valeriy Oyf, who became owner of Vitesse in 2018, provided loans and guarantees to Vitesse with money that came for 99 percent from Abramovich. The payments were made through Matteson Overseas Limited, an Oyf letterbox company in the British Virgin Islands.

Soon after its founding, the Matteson company borrowed tens of millions of euros from Abramovich’s companies, according to internal documents from MeritServus, the Cypriot financial services provider that had Abramovich as its main customer. Oyf itself invested a total of only $16,000 in the company as share capital.

The borrowed millions were invested in other Abramovich companies, such as the gold company Highland Gold and the steel company Evraz. Matteson made tens of millions of dollars in profits from those investments. That was sometimes very easy: for example, in 2010, Matteson bought a stake in an Abramovich company for $ 1 million, only to resell the same shares a year later for $ 34 million to a business partner of Abramovich.

Those profits were used to pay off loans and make new investments. Over a period of ten years, Abramovich lent more than $190 million to Matteson Overseas. This method seems to be a way for Abramovich to let friends and business partners share in his wealth or to use them as front men. In 2018, Oyf bought Vitesse, which he subsequently also financed through Matteson.

Vitesse indicates that it does not want to respond to questions from The Guardian and NRC. “We want to focus on the future of Vitesse,” a spokesperson said. Last Monday, interim director Edwin Reijntjes announced at a press meeting that the club is well advanced in severing ties with Oyf. But the KNVB licensing committee writes in response to questions that Vitesse must first demonstrate that it complies with the sanctions legislation before the shares can be transferred. Oyf itself did not respond to questions.

Close business relationship

Oyf has had a close business relationship with Abramovich for a long time. For example, between 1997 and 2004 he was vice-president of gas company Sibneft, of which Abramovich was a major shareholder. He had acquired this stake in the gas company for a very low price in 1995, when Russia privatized state-owned companies. Ten years later he sold this stake back to Russia for $2 billion. Oyf was also director of Millhouse Capital, the company that manages Abramovich’s assets, for many years.

Last summer, Valeriy Oyf categorically denied to the KNVB and Vitesses’ former house bank ING that he had financial ties with Abramovich. Neither he nor the company with which he financed Vitesse have received money from Abramovich or his companies, Oyf stated. He acknowledged to NRC last November that Matteson had received a few loans from Abramovich’s companies, but that they were intended to gain “liquidity” in the short term and were not used for Vitesse.

Georgian businessman

Abramovich was also closely involved financially with the previous owners of Vitesse. Vitesse’s adventures with foreign owners started in the summer of 2010 when Georgian businessman Merab Jordania, a friend of Abramovich, bought the club from Arnhem. Last year NRC revealed that Jordania entered into a secret consultancy contract with a small company owned by Abramovich. In exchange for 100,000 euros per year, Jordania would make his knowledge of discovering “new football talents” and “various contacts” available to Abramovich. The agreement ended when Jordania left Vitesse in 2013 and sold the club to Aleksandr Chigirinski, also a close friend of Abramovich.

Last year, The Guardian and TBIJ discovered that Abramovich lent money through letterbox companies in the British Virgin Islands to a small Jordanian company, with which he had bought Vitesse. Chigirinski was also financed in this way by Abramovich, after he became the owner of Vitesse. In total, Abramovich indirectly invested approximately 117 million euros in Vitesse.

All these money flows show that the three successive owners of Vitesse have largely relied on Abramovich’s millions over the past fourteen years. Lawyers for the oligarch have always maintained that he has never had any influence or control over Vitesse. The club from Arnhem itself has always said that they were not aware of all those money flows and that money flows do not equate to direct influence.

The question of whether Abramovich had influence on Vitesse, and how far his influence extended, is important because UEFA rules prescribe that clubs that can participate in the same European tournament may not have the same owner. Abramovich owned the British football club Chelsea between 2003 and 2022.

Just before the war in Ukraine in 2022, Oyf played an important role for Abramovich. Just before Abramovich ended up on the sanctions list due to his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he sold hundreds of millions of assets in early 2022. One of the assets was a package of shares in the Russian internet search engine Yandex, which was part of Greenleas, an Abramovich company of which Oyf was a director. Director Oyf sold this share package to his own company Matteson on behalf of Greenleas for 61 million euros.

Acute financial problems

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Oyf has been trying to sell Vitesse. But that is difficult. The KNVB licensing committee recently rejected a takeover by American businessman Coley Parry, because he could not demonstrate whether he had equity and where his money came from.

Due to that failed takeover, Vitesse now has a debt of almost 14.3 million euros to businessman Parry, because he has already invested millions in the club. In addition, current owner Oyf still has a claim on the club from Arnhem, which has now risen to 155 million euros. Oyf previously said he was willing to forgive that debt.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Economic Affairs says that the ministry’s sanctions team – which investigates whether sanctions are being complied with and certain transactions comply with policy – is still in discussions with Vitesse. “Companies (including football clubs) are themselves responsible for complying with applicable sanctions and are obliged to assess transactions against them,” says a spokesperson for the Ministry of Economic Affairs. “This means that they must conduct thorough investigations into the ownership and control structures of counterparties, including shareholders and banks involved in the transactions.”

It is still unclear when the ministry’s investigation will be completed. “We are still awaiting their final plans and documents.”

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