The European Union has imposed sanctions on Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich in new measures targeting Russia.
The EU included the Russian oligarch in its updated list of individuals facing assets freeze and travel bans due to his close links to Vladimir Putin.
Chelsea originally released a statement arguing their game should be behind closed doors because they only sold 650 tickets out of their initial away allocation of 4,620 for the game at the Riverside, meaning they were at a sporting disadvantage and that a behind-closed-doors game would be “the fairest way of proceeding in the current circumstances”.
Sports Minister Nigel Huddlestone gave evidence to the Department of Media, Culture and Sport select committee and said the government may amend its licence to allow Chelsea to sell tickets, so long as Abramovich does not profit from the move.
He said: “The measures we have taken and the licence we have given to Chelsea is to precisely stop [Chelsea going out of business]. It is to allow Chelsea still to play, for staff to still be paid, to honour ticket sales already, and we are discussions with Chelsea and the fans to see if we can allow further ticket sales, because we want the sanctions to hit those we intend to hit and not others.
“But we want to ensure the sanctions hit those we intend to hit and there is minimal impact elsewhere. But there will be inconvenience as a result. We would welcome the sale (of the club) and we would change the licence to enable that sale, and that would be important for Chelsea.”
