Abramovich plan for Chelsea ownership in doubt amid further talks

Roman Abramovich may have to change his plans to hand control of Chelsea over to the club's charitable foundation.

Trustees are expected to have further talks within the next 48 hours with concerns among some of them about what is expected of them and if they will be compromised.

They held talks on Sunday and no agreements have been reached or signed amid criticisms they are being used as a "front" for Abramovich.

Chelsea are adamant they are willing to work through the process, they are not expecting it to be agreed quickly and do not want to rush what is a key decision in the future of the club.

Chelsea owner Abramovich is reported to be in Belarus trying to broker peace after the Russian invasion of Ukraine but it is not known whether he has the support of Vladimir Putin.

But there are fears among the trustees that Abramovich will face sanctions and it will become increasingly difficult for the Russian billionaire to operate in English football.

It has made it difficult for Chelsea to move forward and Abramovich wanted to create a "distance" between him and the club to allow manager Thomas Tuchel to carry on working with the players as normal.

Abramovich said he wanted to hand over "stewardship" of the club to the trustees and also to allow technical adviser Petr Cech and director Marina Granovskaia deal with the day-to-day running of the club.

Tuchel insisted after the Carabao Cup final that the move would not affect him but clearly Chelsea want the trustees to take over to make it a smooth transition and yet there are no guarantees it will work.

They held talks on Sunday and will not have further discussions in the coming days in the hope Chelsea can remain on track.

The trustees are headed up by chairman Bruce Buck and also include lawyer John Devine, club director Paul Ramos, women's head coach Emma Hayes, executive director of anti-discrimination group Fare, Piara Powar, and British Olympic Association chairman Sir Hugh Robertson.

A Charity Commission spokesperson said on the matter: "We have contacted the charity seeking information and, in line with our guidance, the charity has also made a report to the Commission. We cannot comment further at this time."

Abramovich's move drew particularly heavy criticism from former Manchester United captain Gary Neville, who tweeted on Monday: "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.

It followed his rant on Sky Sports ahead of Sunday's defeat to Liverpool, with Neville saying: "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."