CHELSEA FOOTBALL club owner Roman Abramovich said on Wednesday he had accepted an apology and rewrites after suing the author and publisher of a book about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
Abramovich sued publisher HarperCollins and investigative journalist Catherine Belton in the High Court over passages about the Russian billionaire’s acquisition of the English club and business dealings in Russia in her bestselling book “Putin’s People”.
Chelsea released a statement from Abramovich’s spokesperson saying: “We are pleased that HarperCollins and the author have apologised to Mr Abramovich and agreed to amend the book, removing several false claims about him.”
A High Court judge in November had ruled that claims in the book were defamatory against Abramovich, opening up the possibility of a full libel trial, which The Guardian reported could have cost some £10 million.
A group of oligarchs and Russian oil giant Rosneft had launched libel action, but two other oligarchs agreed to small changes, while a High Court judge ruled that only one passage concerning Rosneft was defamatory.
The libel action prompted rights groups including Reporters Without Borders to criticise the use of lawsuits to silence critical reporting.
Belton, a former Financial Times journalist in Moscow who now works for Reuters, said in a statement she was “glad” to have reached a settlement.
She said she had been “bombarded from all sides by lawsuits” in what felt like a “war of attrition”.
Chelsea said the case had been misreported and it was mounting “a well-founded legal claim” that was not seeking to be punitive. It said it had asked HarperCollins to make a charitable donation in lieu of damages.
HarperCollins said it “has now amended the book to record the position more accurately, and include additional comments from Mr Abramovich’s spokesperson”.
It stressed, however, that none of the claims have resulted in damages and praised Belton’s “knowledge, tenacity and bravery”.
Chelsea said the rewritten passages amounted to 1,700 words including “false statements” about Abramovich’s purchase of Chelsea Football Club.
The book included claims by former Putin associate Sergei Pugachev that it was on Putin’s instigation in a bid to increase Russia’s influence.
Harper Collins said it had now made clear “there is no evidence, beyond the statements of the individuals themselves, supporting claims made to the author by Sergei Pugachev and two other unnamed individuals about the purchase of Chelsea Football Club”.
Great move for Arnold who’ll be coming out of his 3 year contract with Brive at only 28.
Hopefully he can build up an impressive reputation and shine for a wayward Brive side similarly to Farrell in Grenoble.
The first of many players across the four provinces who will be making this call in the coming months. With the fewer games in the URC and none in international windows game time has got more and more precious. Connacht are well served at centre with Aki, Daly, Farrell, Robb, and Bolton remaining. Other Irish players I could see similarly on their way to pastures new include Gallagher, any one or two of Healy, Crowley, and Flannery and Loughman at Munster and Ed Byrne, Josh Murphy, Penny, and the two O’Brien’s at Leinster.
@David Finn: i wouldnt include Robb here…hes never fit to play. I cant see Connacht holding on to him to be honest
@David Finn: ….you may not have all the names exactly right but your point is well made. Revive the 5th Province Meath, base it in Navan and develope the facilities to match in what is already a very progressive and ambitious club with a proven track record of growing the game to cater for diversity and an impressive record of progress on the field.
@Michael Murray: There is no need for another province what we need in Ireland is a draft system from schools rugby so players go where they are needed most. No use in IRFU shelling out money to keep 8 top class Irish back rows at leinster and then other provinces having to shell out big money for NIQ back rows makes no sense at all. Worst performing province gets first pick of the talent pool each year. We should also move the provincial schools tournament to a national level.
@Punts & Race Discussion: this is an interesting idea, but Leinster can only signup x amount of players each year to academy contracts.
There are still dozens of players who leave school in Leinster who aren’t signed by Leinster but aren’t picked up by other provinces at this early stage.
Also because of the amount of positions, it would take years before a drafts benefits would kick in.
And Leinster only add 4 or 5 players into the academy each year. So that’s 1 round of picks between the 4 provinces. Either way it still means theres talent coming out of schools in Leinster that provinces are ignoring currently.
@Billy Keenan: Leinster sign them to the sub academy so they stay and play their club rugby in Leinster rather than chance a trip to another province
@john joe brady: yeah that’s a good point and there was an article in the indo a few years ago saying something like 20 players were involved in sub academy.
But surely you’d have to say that an Academy contract would outweigh a sub academy one ?
Think Connachts of Illo from the U20s would be an interesting case study. ATightehad (not a position of typical leinster depth with salanoa, angier bent and McGrath leaving recently) who played underage rugby with Leinster. Could be good to dive deeper into what went on there and how he was brought west, a great talent.
@Billy Keenan: and Leinster took on 7 into the academy this year, which in fairness is much more than the 4 I said they did earlier ^^
@Punts & Race Discussion: absolutely no sense in changing Schools comp to national level. For a start you could have Bandon Grammar/PBC/CBC Cork/Newtown Grammar playing up the top of the country. The local rivalries are what drives the Schools Cups, and kids spending hours sitting on coaches to and from games against Schools they have no inbuilt rivalry with will detract from their enjoyment..
Also Connacht, (Garbally apart) doesn’t have schools where Rugby is the main (or only) Sport with male enrollments big enough to compete with other provinces. There are barely a handful of Boys only schools left in the province and fewer against with enrollments near 500 or more…
Anyway the underage Interpro’s pretty do the job pretty well anyway….
@Punts & Race Discussion: so basically force kids to play for teams even if they have no interest in playing for them? Move to a provience where thsy have no connections?
So say a lad from west cork was picked by ulster and said no i dont want to go there do se ban him from playing for his local club?