Roman Abramovich Secretly Pumped £103M Into Dutch Club Vitesse While At Stamford Bridge

Dutch club Vitesse received €117 million (£103m/$127m) in loans from then-Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, a recent report has found.

That's according to exclusive information from The Guardian, which write that Abramovich played a key part in funding the Vitesse takeover of 2010, which was headed by former Georgia international Merab Jordania. The findings, which stem from a cache of leaked data known as the Oligarch files, appear to show that the secret backing flowed through several entities registered in offshore tax havens.

The Guardian notes that Vitesse had already been on the radar of the Netherlands football association over their alleged relationship with Abramovich. Jordania was a reported friend of the oligarch, and was succeeded by his associate and Russian businessman Alexander Chigirinsky. Vitesse also became a "partner club" to Chelsea and took in many of their loanees from 2010 onwards, with Nemanja Matic and Mason Mount - as recently as 2017-18 - two standout examples.