Chelsea football club’s Russian owner Roman Abramovich has been barred from living in Britain. The billionaire has not been seen at his Premier League football club’s south-west London home, Stamford Bridge, for months and in 2018 withdrew his application for a British Tier 1 investor visa in the wake of the Salisbury poisonings by Russian agents.
Roman Abramovich Barred from Entering UK
According to reports, senior UK security sources now say it is unlikely that the 55-year-old billionaire will ever be allowed to live in Britain ever again. Immigration officials are reportedly under instructions from the United Kingdom government to ensure Abramovich who owns a £125million mansion near Kensington Palace never enter the UK again.
The Government’s Home Office’s ‘Special Cases Unit’ is handling his case and the action comes after Russia conducted a full invasion of Ukraine. This week UK politicians named Abramovich as one of 35 oligarchs identified by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as one of the ‘key enablers’ of the country’s president Vladimir Putin.
He however denied his closeness with Kremlin or has done anything that would merit sanctions being imposed against him. In 2018 Mr Abramovich became an Israeli citizen, allowing him to enter Britain for up to six months and he used his Israeli passport last October to make a short trip to London.
But sources said if he wants to be resident in the UK he will have to apply formally for a permanent visa. A senior source said: “Any attempt would almost certainly be rejected.” Recently Boris Johnson corrected a Commons statement, saying that Abramovich had been officially sanctioned by the Government.
