Fascinating look at the secretive world of Chelsea's Mr Big
The Times
29 October 2004
BY ASHLING O'CONNOR
Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere
by Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins
(HarperCollins)
To English football fans, the name Roman Abramovich is now as familiar as those of Sir Alex Ferguson, Wayne Rooney, Arsène Wenger and David Beckham. Yet just 16 months ago, most had never heard of the Russian oil tycoon, who rescued Chelsea from bankruptcy by buying the club for £140 million and then embarking on a £200 million spending spree.
In the intervening period, while Chelsea fans rode their rollercoaster ride with Claudio Ranieri, the head coach, to the semi-finals of the European Cup and second place in the Premiership, Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins set about discovering the origins of the “billionaire from nowhere”.
Their book is a well-researched and fluently written account of Abramovich’s 38-year journey from Saratov, on the banks of the Volga, to Stamford Bridge, not far from the Thames. It is the sort of book that many a football writer wishes they could have written were they able to park their jobs to one side for a season.
As they set out in their prologue, Midgley and Hutchins’s unauthorised autobiography appears to have got under the skin of their reclusive target, who emerges as a character with a greater concern for his own press than he would care to admit.
Abramovich is more than a little paranoid. Given the fate of Mikhail Khordokovsky, a fellow oligarch now facing a ten-year prison term for tax fraud having fallen out with President Putin, it is hardly surprising. The authors provide fascinating insight into the gilt-edged cage into which he has been forced to safeguard himself and his family from the enemies his power attracts.
Where this book sets itself apart is in its quest to discover Abramovich’s true identity. Interviews with his childhood friends, neighbours and teachers in Russia offer an original perspective on the man, while access to the informed such as Boris Berezovsky, his one-time mentor, provides a picture of a canny dealmaker and consummate politician.
The authors do a good job of chronicling Abramovich’s path to fortune through government-sanctioned privatisations at rock bottom prices. Yet it feels as if they jump too quickly from his position as a humble oil trader to the co-owner of a $15 billion (£8.1 billion) conglomerate. While the concept of “cowboy capitalism” is explored in great depth, there is just a nod to the idea that the oligarchs might have employed rough tactics in the Wild West market of post-Soviet Russia.
That Abramovich emerges from this book as a bit of a teddy bear may be the quid pro quo for access to his senior lieutenants. Had the authors received no co-operation, he could more easily have been painted as a ruthless businessman with self-serving ambition and few true loyalties.
Instead, his hard edges softened, the lasting image is of an amiable rogue and enthusiastic benefactor with an unrivalled sense of timing. For Chelsea fans, at least, that is all they need to know.
The Times
29 October 2004
BY ASHLING O'CONNOR
Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere
by Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins
(HarperCollins)
To English football fans, the name Roman Abramovich is now as familiar as those of Sir Alex Ferguson, Wayne Rooney, Arsène Wenger and David Beckham. Yet just 16 months ago, most had never heard of the Russian oil tycoon, who rescued Chelsea from bankruptcy by buying the club for £140 million and then embarking on a £200 million spending spree.
In the intervening period, while Chelsea fans rode their rollercoaster ride with Claudio Ranieri, the head coach, to the semi-finals of the European Cup and second place in the Premiership, Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins set about discovering the origins of the “billionaire from nowhere”.
Their book is a well-researched and fluently written account of Abramovich’s 38-year journey from Saratov, on the banks of the Volga, to Stamford Bridge, not far from the Thames. It is the sort of book that many a football writer wishes they could have written were they able to park their jobs to one side for a season.
As they set out in their prologue, Midgley and Hutchins’s unauthorised autobiography appears to have got under the skin of their reclusive target, who emerges as a character with a greater concern for his own press than he would care to admit.
Abramovich is more than a little paranoid. Given the fate of Mikhail Khordokovsky, a fellow oligarch now facing a ten-year prison term for tax fraud having fallen out with President Putin, it is hardly surprising. The authors provide fascinating insight into the gilt-edged cage into which he has been forced to safeguard himself and his family from the enemies his power attracts.
Where this book sets itself apart is in its quest to discover Abramovich’s true identity. Interviews with his childhood friends, neighbours and teachers in Russia offer an original perspective on the man, while access to the informed such as Boris Berezovsky, his one-time mentor, provides a picture of a canny dealmaker and consummate politician.
The authors do a good job of chronicling Abramovich’s path to fortune through government-sanctioned privatisations at rock bottom prices. Yet it feels as if they jump too quickly from his position as a humble oil trader to the co-owner of a $15 billion (£8.1 billion) conglomerate. While the concept of “cowboy capitalism” is explored in great depth, there is just a nod to the idea that the oligarchs might have employed rough tactics in the Wild West market of post-Soviet Russia.
That Abramovich emerges from this book as a bit of a teddy bear may be the quid pro quo for access to his senior lieutenants. Had the authors received no co-operation, he could more easily have been painted as a ruthless businessman with self-serving ambition and few true loyalties.
Instead, his hard edges softened, the lasting image is of an amiable rogue and enthusiastic benefactor with an unrivalled sense of timing. For Chelsea fans, at least, that is all they need to know.