It appears that leaked documents known as the Oligarch files suggest that Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, secretly funded the takeover of Dutch top division club Vitesse Arnhem and bankrolled it for years. The documents reveal at least €117m (£102.8m) in secret funding from Abramovich for the Vitesse takeover, which flowed through a series of entities registered in offshore tax havens.
Two investigations by the Netherlands football association were unable to uncover any financial ties between Abramovich and Vitesse Arnhem, and both Vitesse under its then owners and Chelsea under Abramovich repeatedly denied his involvement. However, links to Chelsea were suspected at the time of the 2010 takeover, which was led by former footballer Merab Jordania.
It should be noted that the authenticity of the leaked documents has not been independently verified, and Abramovich and his representatives have not commented on the matter.
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