Nick Purewal

Journalist at Author of Sanctioned The Inside Story of the Sale of Chelsea FC

Speaker

Nick Purewal is an author and journalist with more than twenty years’ experience in news and sports reporting. His 2025 bestselling book Sanctioned The Inside Story of the Sale of Chelsea FC includes the first ever sit-down interviews with the billionaire former Blues owner Roman Abramovich. The forced sale of Chelsea Football Club in 2022, in the shadow of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, would change English football for ever. Under the threat of bankruptcy and ruin, Chelsea pulled off a complex transaction in three tense and troubling months – a quarter of the time many analysts would normally set aside for such a deal. Through unprecedented access to Abramovich himself and key figures from Chelsea’s new ownership, as well as further interviews with a star-studded footballing cast, Sanctioned unfolds a wide-ranging tale of political sanctions, hushed negotiations and Cold War-style geopolitics, comprising even a foul-play poisoning episode, against a backdrop of war on the edge of Europe. After roles with the Press Association and the Evening Standard, Nick now writes both fiction and non-fiction books, ghostwrites other titles and advises on media strategy