Marina Granovskaia will leave Chelsea because nobody “is willing to employ Russians” says super agent

Recent weeks have seen repeated reports that Marina Granovskaia will stay at Chelsea in her current role to facilitate the handover between owners.

That makes a lot of sense from a pure business point of view, but there’s a lot more to consider than just that. We’ve always foreseen issues given how closely Marina is linked to Roman Abramovich, who is now a very much sanctioned individual.

Football agent Rob Segal has an eternally fascinating column with CaughtOffside, and he has today pointed out a similar factor:

“The new American owners will want their own in and Granovskaia is Abramovich’s right-hand lady and part of his inner workings for many years, even before Chelsea, so they’ll definitely be looking to put their own mechanisms in place,” Segal said.

“When it comes to the possibility of her leaving Chelsea and staying in football, I don’t think from a global standpoint, that anybody is willing to employ Russians at the moment. I certainly can’t see her staying in the English game.”

The worst thing Chelsea can do, given we’re just a few days from the season ending and the transfer window opening, is rip things up and start again with a new face leading all football-side negotiations.

On the other hand, we’ve always said it looks difficult for a new owner to keep anyone from the Roman regime on, whether the government approve it or not.