Roman Abramovich’s £1billion protest over his UK visa could spark a major financial headache for Britain if there is an exodus of other oligarchs, it was revealed today.
Chelsea’s Russian owner has personally halted the redevelopment of Stamford Bridge in the wake of Theresa May’s ‘wealth war’ following the Salisbury spy poisoning in March.
Mr Abramovich’s UK visa expired in April – effectively banning him from Britain – and the billionaire has torn up his application and taken Israeli citizenship because he is tired of waiting.
Lord Hain, the former Labour cabinet minister and a passionate Chelsea fan, told The Times today: ‘The Government has been hamfistedly clumsy’ adding their ‘objective should have been to aim at Vladimir Putin, not Chelsea’.
Britain’s new clampdown on oligarchs means 700-plus Russian millionaires who also need a tier 1 visa to live and work in Britain must prove their extraordinary wealth is not built on ‘dirty money’.
Some of Russia’s richest billionaires are based in London including Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov, energy mogul Oleg Deripaska and star investor Mikhail Fridman, who must all apply for a new working visa every five years.
If they face the same obstacles as the Chelsea owner it could risk £1.4billion in UK investment plus more in tax revenues with one source claiming Whitehall is deeply worried and ‘doesn’t want to stoke this.’
There are also 57 Russian-run companies listed on the London Stock Exchange – the largest number anywhere in the world outside Moscow – whose work in Britain could also be hit.
Roman Abramovich is a known ally of Vladimir Putin, who treats him like a son, and the Russian President may have been consulted over his visa stand

Chelsea have put their plans to redevelop Stamford Bridge into a 60,000 stadium, which has been 15 years in the making

Roman Abramovich, who was last pictured at Chelsea with Guus Hiddink in December, is said to have personally pulled the plug on the £1billion stadium plan after his visa row
Roman’s stand may have the blessing of Putin – who treats him as a ‘favourite son’ – and the row after the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal could encourage the Russian president to exert pressure on London’s oligarchs to punish Britain.
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich halted the £1billion redevelopment of Stamford Bridge and tore up his UK visa application in the wake of Britain’s ‘war’ on oligarchs following the Salisbury spy poisoning.
The Russian billionaire, 51, sought Israeli citizenship to regain entry to the UK after the Home Office denied him an investor visa – effectively stopping him from working in Britain.
Mr Abramovich, who is worth £9.3billion, is said to have personally mothballed plans to upgrade Chelsea’s stadium because he is unwilling to invest £1billion into a country where he is now not permitted to work.
And his row with Britain was ramped up further as Israeli sources said he has pulled his UK visa application completely because he is tired of waiting for one.
The oil and steel magnate had been treated as a ‘new applicant’ after his previous 40-month investor visa lapsed in April – effectively banning him from Britain and forcing him to miss Chelsea’s FA Cup win a fortnight ago.
Britain’s bitter row with Russia after the assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal means hundreds more oligarchs wanting their ‘Tier 1’ visa – dubbed the ‘golden visa’ because of the wealth needed to get one – must now demonstrate their cash is not ‘dirty’.
Mr Abramovich’s decision to dump the £1billion project is hugely significant because he has spent 15 years pursuing his ‘dream’ to build Europe’s best stadium for Chelsea.
MailOnline has asked Chelsea and Mr Abramovich for comment but they declined.
The Russian citizen’s extraordinary wealth has transformed Chelsea’s fortunes and earned the former Premier League and Champions League winners the nickname ‘Chelski’.
Chelsea’s official statement has said its 60,000-seat arena was put on hold ‘due to the current unfavourable investment climate’.
Experts have suggested that pulling his investment could be the ultimate powerplay with the Home Office over his visa – but others say the redevelopment just doesn’t stack up financially because it will cost £1billion to add just 19,000 new seats.
It could also mean he is set to sell his beloved Chelsea and quit Britain for good.
Mr Abramovich had been waiting for his ‘golden visa’, granted to foreigners who invest more than £2million in Britain every year.
Without one he cannot work for Chelsea and this week it emerged he will officially move to Tel Aviv to restore his access to the UK.
Relations between Moscow and London have been strained since former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury in March.
Britain blamed the attack on Russia but the Kremlin denied any involvement.
As his father’s family were Jewish, Mr Abramovich is entitled to live in Israel – and an Israeli passport would restore his access to Britain, as citizens can enter the UK without a visa.
Local news sites in Israel reported that Mr Abramovich had flown into Tel Aviv this week and received documents confirming his status as an Israeli citizen.
And the Jerusalem Post says he has now pulled his UK visa application.

Mr Abramovich, pictured with his third wife Dasha Zhukova, who he split with last year, has effectively been banned from Britain and can only come on a tourist visa, leaving him unable to work here

The club revealed a timeframe for the reconsideration of the decision doesn’t exist
Israel grants citizenship to any Jew wishing to move there and a passport can be issued immediately.
Israeli passport holders can enter Britain without a visa for short stays although they would still require visas to work here.
Mr Abramovich has been a regular visitor to Israel and Ynet said he had bought a property that was formerly a hotel in an old Tel Aviv neighbourhood close to the Mediterranean.
Chelsea has said there is no time frame for the reconsideration of their stadium decision.
There is also uncertainty of manager Antonio Conte, who could be sacked or move to the newly vacant Real Madrid job.
Some have suggested that Mr Abramovich could consider slowing his spending at Chelsea and could consider selling up.
After yesterday’s shock stadium decision Chelsea said in a statement: ‘Chelsea Football Club has put its new stadium project on hold. No further pre-construction design and planning work will occur.
‘The club does not have a time frame set for reconsideration of its decision.
‘The decision was made due to the current unfavourable investment climate.’
Stamford Bridge currently has a capacity of 41,631, and if the development plans went ahead then it would have been Europe’s most expensive stadium at a cost of £1billion.
The development comes amid a spiralling diplomatic crisis between Britain and Russia over the poisoning of a former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, in Salisbury in March.

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich (pictured last Nay) isn’t permitted to work for the club as part of the ongoing battle with the Home Office
Later that month, then Home Secretary Amber Rudd asked officials to review the basis on which more than 700 wealthy Russians were allowed to settle in the UK.
She told MPs that Home Office officials were looking at how Russians who have secured so-called Tier 1 visas in order to live in the UK acquired their wealth.
Unlike some other wealthy Russian investors, Mr Abramovich never took UK residency but has continued to visit the UK on a Tier-1 investors visa.
In January, Mr Abramovich’s name appeared on a US treasury department list of 210 officials and oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin.
The list was issued to congress and is part of a sanctions law designed to punish Russia for interfering in the US election.
Mr Abramovich, who has a wealth of £9.3billion according to the Sunday Times Rich List, had not previously figured in any U.S. sanctions-related list, although Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny called on Western governments in 2014 to seize his property.
A spokesman for the businessman, who bought Chelsea in 2003, said he could not comment because ‘it’s a personal issue’.
Although his £125million mansion in Kensington, West London, is one of Mr Abramovich’s residences, he spends a lot of time in Moscow.
He also owns four New York town houses, worth a combined £71million. His superyacht Eclipse is said to be worth $500million.
Roman Abramovich has seven children, five with his second wife Irina Malandina, and two with his third wife Dasha Zhukova. His two youngest children have US citizenship.
The other five are believed to go between their mother’s country estate in West Sussex and mansions in central London.
It is not known what the Chelsea owner’s visa fallout will mean for his family.
This week Russia’s Sport-Express website cited sources in Mr Abramovich’s entourage as saying that it had taken a long time for his application to be processed – but he was still due to get a new British visa shortly.
The Home Office declined to comment, but on its website, it tells visa applicants: ‘You should get a decision on your visa within 3 weeks’.
The billionaire has been waiting as long as two months.
From an orphan in Russia’s bleak Komi republic to the billionaire owner of Chelsea: How Roman Abramovich turned his life from grim beginnings to become an oligarch with superyachts, private jets and a football club

Roman Abramovich will have to prove his wealth is legitimate after Whitehall launched a war on oligarchs
From a grim start in life as an orphan in Russia’s bleak Komi republic, Roman Abramovich has come a long way.
Now worth an estimated £9.3billion, he is the world’s 139th richest person and owns a fleet of superyachts and private jets.
His sumptuous yacht Eclipse, a 533ft gin palace, has two helicopter pads, 24 guest cabins, two swimming pools, three launch boats and a mini-submarine.
His aircraft include a Boeing 767 with the same air missile avoidance system as Air Force One, a Gulfstream jet and a nippy Dassault Falcon dubbed ‘Mini Bandit’.
Yet his vast wealth has never been fully chronicled – not that fans at his trophy-laden football club Chelsea seem to mind.
Mr Abramovich, 51, was orphaned aged four and left school at 16. He studied engineering, then went into business, first as a mechanic and then heading a co-operative making plastic ducks and other toys, earning a paltry £2,000 a year.
But during the tumultuous decade that followed the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, he was drawn into a circle of businessmen close to the Kremlin. The group bankrolled Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and were credited with ‘buying’ his presidential victory, and went on to back the next leader … Vladimir Putin.
Many of these favoured businessmen were given the chance to snap up Russia’s state assets during an era of ‘privatisation’.
Mr Abramovich eventually emerged as the joint-owner of the Sibneft oil group.

Eclipse, the private luxury yacht of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, pictured in Turkey in 2014
His closeness to Mr Putin goes back a long way. Mr Abramovich was one of his early supporters, recommending him for the top Kremlin job to Boris Yeltsin when the ailing leader was looking for a successor.
According to the late oligarch Boris Berezovsky in evidence to the High Court in London, Mr Abramovich enjoyed significant political influence in Moscow in the second half of the 1990s.
In October 1999, he attended Mr Putin’s birthday party. Soon afterwards, Mr Abramovich allegedly bought Mr Putin, then the prime minister, a $50million (£37million) yacht. ‘The request came from Mr Putin,’ Mr Berezovsky said in evidence.
In 2003, Mr Abramovich bought Chelsea for £60million. Two years later, he was involved in a much larger transaction when he sold his oil company, Sibneft, to state-run Gazprom. He got $13billion (£10billion).
He began spending time in London, where he owns a 15-bedroom Victorian mansion on ‘Billionaire’s Row’ in Kensington, bought in 2009 for a reported £97million and now worth at least £150million. He also owns a row of four townhouses in Manhattan and a string of other properties across the globe.
He married his first wife, Olga Lysova, in 1987, and his second, former Russian Aeroflot stewardess Irina Malandina, in 1991. They had five children before divorcing in 2007, with Miss Lysova accepting a reported settlement of £230million. He split from his third wife, art collector and gallery director Dasha Zhukova, last year after a decade together and two more children.
The billionaire’s visa difficulties do not seem to be hampering his global travel, though the exact location of the fiercely private oligarch is unknown.
Yesterday one unconfirmed report suggested he was sailing with friends in the Caribbean. But the Eclipse was moored in Antibes in the South of France, and yesterday afternoon his Gulfstream 650 private jet flew from nearby Monaco to Russia.
In recent years, he has been mainly living in Moscow, where he remains close to Mr Putin. If he does not get his British visa sorted out, he could be spending even more time there.
How Chelsea dumped 60,000 Stamford Bridge despite Russian owner’s 15 year battle for his ‘dream stadium’
Roman Abramovich fought for a year to proceed with ambitious plans to build an iconic new home with capacity for 60,000 fans at Stamford Bridge – only to drop it.
Proposals were officially approved after a unanimous vote by council planners in January last year with a view to start playing there at the start of the 2021/22 season.
Chelsea’s billionaire owner’s dream was to build a new cathedral for football in West London.
But the successful businessman’s personal project proved far more troublesome for Abramovich than the task of turning the team into a success on the pitch since his takeover in 2003.

Chelsea’s billionaire owner’s dream was to build a new cathedral for football in West London

Chelsea had hoped to begin life in their new home in west London in the 2021-22 season

Hammersmith and Fulham planning documents show the original plans for the new Chelsea stadium submitted in 2015

The plans were re-submitted with considerable extensions in 2016 (pictured)
As well as considering redeveloping Stamford Bridge he also looked at building at Earl’s Court and even a super-stadium at Battersea Power Station.
Chelsea’s aim was to be playing in their new stadium by the start of the 2021/22 season and spend three years away – potentially at Wembley – while the construction work is undertaken.

Roman has dreamt of building the best stadium in Europe for Chelsea.
It was designed by the same architects behind the acclaimed Allianz Arena in Munich, at an estimated cost of more than £500million.
Hammersmith and Fulham Council received messages of support for the project from all around the world, as far afield as Nigeria and the USA.
Local residents, however, turned up to make their objections on different points such as the ‘overbearing’ nature of the new stadium, damage to local conservation areas and heritage sites.
Also about the changing sight-lines and infringements of privacy from proposed walkways which will be installed over existing railways lines to provide the necessary access to cope with an extra 18,000 spectators on match-days.
One family, the Crosthwaites, threatened Abramovich with a £20million legal battle because they believed the new stadium would affect light coming into their home.
Retired banker Nicholas Crosthwaite and his interior designer wife Lucinda told the Chelsea owner they wanted millions in compensation, attempting a High Court injunction to get the plans blocked completely.
Abramovich refused to cave into their demands and the club said they would only only pay £1million.
But after Hammersmith and Fulham Council acquired ownership of the airspace over their home, they decided to back down.
Councillors aired their own concerns about parking and they demanded more details on the demolition and construction processes, the external lighting strategy and the heights and materials of the screens for the new walkways.
But the club’s plans were approved unanimously after assurances Chelsea gave.

The Stamford Bridge club had planned spend as long as three years in exile from their home but will now stay put

Roman has waited 15 years for a new stadium but appears for now to have given up on the idea
After announcing their plans to redevelop Stamford Bridge, they then faced several obstacles, which included them having to settle a dispute with a neighbour who objected to the construction of the ground.
The Crosthwaite family, took out a High Court injunction last year over a ‘right to light’.
In January Chelsea’s request was accepted for Hammersmith and Fulham Council to intervene and compulsorily purchase an interest in land – owned by Network Rail and Transport for London – in order to override the ‘right to light’ principle.
But now the club has said the stadium is on the shelf despite the years of work to get one.