Football pundit and former Manchester United defender Gary Neville has continued to criticise Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich for relinquishing ‘stewardship and care’ of the Blues to the club’s charitable foundation.
The decision came after calls for the 55-year-old to be banned from owning the Stamford Bridge outfit due to his links to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, who is behind their invasion of Ukraine.
Abramovich has not made it clear whether he is in support of Putin’s decisions or not, though his silence is leading many to believe that draw their own conclusions.
Chelsea released a statement on Saturday outlining the ‘changes’ in ownership, but Neville has been vocal in how he does not think the change is fair on the trustees, nor does he believe Abramovich will step away for the foreseeable future.
He tweeted on Monday morning: “The Trustees didn’t sign up to be used as a shield! They wanted to assist Chelsea’s efforts in the community. Poor from Abramovich and whoever was advising him.”
Neville was then asked what he should do and whether he should just sacrifice the club, to which he responded: “No. Say I own the club, I’m Russian and I’m proud of it. Don’t try and bluff us with some trustee rubbish. He’s the sole owner of Chelsea and nothing changed with the statement he made.
Another asked why Abramovich should lose the ownership of Chelsea because of his nationality, Neville answered: “I’m not saying he should. I’m saying don’t throw a hospital pass to ‘trustees’ of your charity who didn’t sign up to be used as a shield to protect the hierarchy at the club.”
One user then said “Looks like the trustees hired you as their lawyer,” to which Neville replied: “I’ve met a few of them and I can’t believe they would be happy with this at all.”
Now that Abramovich has, on paper, relieved himself of power at the club, there is now a handful of people in control at Stamford Bridge.
Club chairman Bruce Buck, sports lawyer John Devine, women’s team manager Emma Hayes, director of finance Paul Ramos, former Kick It Out chief executive Piara Powar and politician Sir Hugh Robertson make up the six trustees at the club.
But Neville has previously spoken of how he thinks it is cowardly to ‘throw’ the care of the club onto them.
He told Sky Sports: “One of the smartest things that I think Roman Abramovich has done the last 20 years is not speak, not make statements because the statement he made left questions then answers.
"In fact, if anything I thought it was to be fair a cowardly approach to sort of throw a hospital pass to good people on the charitable and foundation board when it’s quite clear he runs the club with Marina and Petr Cech on the football side.
“These owners of the top six clubs are insulated from reality. They think they can put a smart PR team around them and con us with fancy words but unfortunately, it doesn’t work and, no, there’s no way the charitable foundation at Chelsea are running the club and I’m not quite sure why Roman Abramovich made that statement.
"If he wanted to make a statement of any note it would have been whether he supports the war at Ukraine or he actually doesn’t support the war at Ukraine,” Neville added.
It remains to be seen whether Chelsea or Abramovich come forward with another statement about the ongoing war in Ukraine, or if they stay silent in hope that they remain out of the limelight.
