Axel May, edited by Gauthier Delomez
modified to
5:18 p.m., February 28, 2022
With the Ukrainian crisis, the international community is taking sanctions against Russia, and these also concern the field of sport. Russian athletes become personæ non gratæ. In France, the AS Monaco football club, owned by oligarch Dmitri Rybolovlev, is forced to keep a low profile.
The Ukrainian crisis enters the world of sport. The international community has been taking sanctions against Russia in recent days, and Fifa is considering excluding the national team from the FIFA World Cup. This international crisis is affecting clubs owned by Russian interests, such as Chelsea in England, or AS Monaco. The very discreet Dmitry Rybolovlev has owned the club in the principality for ten years, and several of his compatriots manage it on a daily basis. It gets messy in the French championship.
Stade de Reims delays kick-off in solidarity with Ukraine
This weekend, for example, the Stade de Reims played against the Monegasque club on the occasion of the 26th day of Ligue 1. The Rémois delayed the kick-off of the match by five minutes as a sign of support for the ‘Ukraine. “It’s a bit tricky because we know Monaco’s shareholder and we didn’t want to make the people of Monaco or the club uncomfortable,” explains the president of the Reims club, Jean-Pierre Caillot. “It was we who took the initiative, at the Stade de Reims, to very symbolically delay the kick-off,” he continues.
ASM assures that Rybolovlev is not close to Putin
Who is Dmitry Rybolovlev? This oligarch made his fortune after the breakup of the USSR in potash, an ore that is used in particular to make fertilizers. In Monaco, it is assured that the president of the ASM is not close to Vladimir Putin. As for his links with Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, it would be because the country is a potash producer, according to L’Equipe. Facing Reims, Prince Albert II was in any case very present in the official gallery. But a question will arise: could certain Ligue 1 teams refuse to come and play in the principality?