Roman Abramovich will leave Chelsea without a new stadium

English football club Chelsea, owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, temporarily froze the project to build a new stadium in London.
This is reported on the team's website. "No further pre-design work on design and planning will be conducted. There is no time frame for review of this decision, "the message says.

The project was suspended due to "an unfavorable investment climate," the report said.

In turn, the sources of the newspaper Financial Times tied the club's decision with the uncertainty in the issue of issuing a new British visa to Abramovich. According to a man close to the club's management, Abramovich needs guarantees of obtaining documents and while he does not want to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in building the stadium. As the newspaper notes, the sources of funding for the project were not disclosed earlier, but the newspaper's interlocutors said that Abramovich, perhaps with other investors, could cover the costs.
 

Representatives of Chelsea declined to comment on the FT decision to freeze the project. Issues related to the Abramovich visa, the football club called "private business" businessman.

Roman Abramovich in April expired the British visa of the investor, and the extradition of the new one was delayed, sources said The Bell, Reuters, Bloomberg, BBC. Because of problems with the visa businessman missed the match Chelsea, which was held in London on May 19, wrote FT. The Telegraph suggested that Abramovich's documents were sent for additional verification and he might have to confirm the legality of the funds invested in British assets. In turn, Abramovich in late May began the process of obtaining Israeli citizenship. An Israeli passport allows you to enter the UK for up to six months. One FT source said that the businessman applied for Israeli citizenship before it became known about the problem with the British visa.

The London authorities allowed Abramovich to build a new stadium in place of the current home arena - Stamford Bridge. The mayor of London, Sadik Khan, said that the new stadium will become a "pearl in the sports crown of London." As the Telegraph wrote, 1 billion pounds sterling (about $ 1.3 billion) will be spent on construction. According to the Financial Times, the project cost is 500 million pounds sterling (about $ 650 million).

According to Forbes, Abramovich's fortune is $ 10.8 billion. In the rating of the richest businessmen of Russia he is on the 11th place.

What is now the "Stamford Bridge"

"Stamford Bridge" - the home arena of Chelsea since 1905. It is located in the London district of Fulham, along the north bank of the Thames.

Initially, the stadium accommodated only 5,000 spectators. Subsequently, it was rebuilt several times. From the oval form of the stadium refused. Now it is a rectangle with stands that are as close to the field as possible. The stadium is designed for 41,000 spectators, it ranks ninth in capacity among football stadiums in the UK. The capacity of the new arena should be 60,000 people.

Against the construction are residents of houses that are located next to the "Stamford Bridge". The new stadium is planned to be built above the current one by one level, and the shadow from it will fall to 50 houses. The leadership of Chelsea had to negotiate with every family living next to the stadium. In exchange for compensation, the club received construction permits from all neighbors, except for the owners of the house closest to the stadium. The Croswait family filed a lawsuit in court, because of this, the start of construction work was postponed, the BBC reported. The parties have not yet agreed.