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Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich rarely speaks about the club in public and often stays away from football matters.
However, in a rare interview with Forbes, he opened up in great detail about his vision for the club’s future.
The billionaire owner spoke briefly about the club after the decision was made to fire Frank Lampard, and talked about how difficult it was for him to fire the legendary midfielder.
But now, he’s back to talking about the club and how much it has changed since he first took control in 2003.
He explained that part of Chelsea’s culture when he first took office was that former players rarely participated in the running of the club.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Now, they have had Lampard as coach, Gianfranco Zola as assistant, and currently they have Petr Cech as technical director.
And it appears that Abramovich was a major factor in the decision to bring former players back to the club.
“They weren’t even invited to watch games,” he said of the former players when he first assumed control of the club.
He continued: “So that was something else: supporting the former players, people who had helped the club along the way, and giving them the opportunity to continue being part of the club and the history in the future.”
During Abramovich’s second year of ownership, the club opted to install a women’s team, something the Russian was clearly pleased with.
“If women’s football received the same support as men’s, the sport would obviously have the same commercial success,” she said of the women’s team.
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Abramovich went on to explain that he believes Chelsea, as a club, should be seen as more than just the first team team.
“Chelsea is a community, it is the women’s team, it is the youth teams, it is the academy, it is the support for the former players of the club,” he added.
“It’s something that we started to do from day one. The reason is that we get closer to Chelsea as a community.
“And the people within the community – there are children, there are women, there are men, there are former players, there are current players, there are future players – they all need to be welcomed and be a part of how we run the business.”
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