To boycote football teams and businesses owned by Oligarchs

[IamSamantha]

There is little we can do as individuals to show our disgust at the invasion of the Ukraine. However, we can make an impression but choosing not to support businesses financially that are owned by Oligarchs. Football teams being the main group that's springs to mind.

We can boycote by reducing footfall and refusing season tickets etc.

Good luck, there won't be many people willing to give up their season tickets in protest. Oligarchs already have more money than they can spend in their lifetime, withholding your £500 or whatever is meaningless.

Do you currently have a Chelsea season ticket?

Well people complain about footballer salaries but they still buy the merch & watch the games so I can't see them going for this. I don't spend a penny on football personally.

So what are the teams to do? They can't remove their Russian owners can they? Not their fault

@araiwa

Do you currently have a Chelsea season ticket?

Lol no

@TellMeMoreHellebore

So what are the teams to do? They can't remove their Russian owners can they? Not their fault

So what are the Ukrainians to do? Russian is killing their country and citizens! Not the Ukrainians fault.

This post is hilarious.

You say that we can’t do much on the ground so we should be boycotting football teams, and your question asked whether you would be unreasonable to boycott them.

So you’re asking whether you’re being unreasonable to not buy a season ticket which you never owned in the first place and didn’t have any intentions of buying anyway, but presumably if you declare that you won’t be buying one because of the poor Ukrainian people then people will feel you’re doing your bit.

Virtue signalling at its finest.

How are you going to boycott a team thar you don't have a season ticket for... 🤔

@AlternativePerspective

This post is hilarious.

You say that we can’t do much on the ground so we should be boycotting football teams, and your question asked whether you would be unreasonable to boycott them.

So you’re asking whether you’re being unreasonable to not buy a season ticket which you never owned in the first place and didn’t have any intentions of buying anyway, but presumably if you declare that you won’t be buying one because of the poor Ukrainian people then people will feel you’re doing your bit.

Virtue signalling at its finest.

Wow, that's just nasty and shows you've totally misunderstood!

It's not just football related but continuing to line the pockets of the Oligarchs does not morally or rationally make any sense to me.

Clearly you feel ABU. In terms of Chelsea specifically. Enjoy the match while the owner of the club laughs with Putin as millions die.

For those seeing the Russian State Ballet (I've cancelled my tickets!), and State Circus, enjoy the show while the Ukrainians have their theatres bombed and civilians killed by Russian forces.

There is a lot we can all do!

No there really isn’t aa lot we can all do.

Boycotting is only ever a personal thing. People boycott products/companies because of their own personal principles and that’s fine, but it’s naive to think that it makes any difference on a wider scale.

The amount of money people spend on Chelsey football tickets is negligible compared to the amount of money which has come into Chelsey from the Russian side.

Roman Abramovich‘a house alone is apparently worth £150m. Only deporting every Russian from the UK would make any kind of difference, and that’s simply not going to happen.

So yeah, boycott all you like. I won’t buy fur on the basis I think it’s an awful practice, but that’s based on my own view. Me boycotting fur products (which I don’t actually own anyway) makes 0 difference to the industry.

I think we should boycott the Premier League for allowing such an ownership situation to develop.

you could try boycotting the Tory party who have received £2 million from Russian backers.

Most people who disagree with how the premier league is run already don’t give them money though.

Invariably people who are invested in the premier league i.e. emotionally invested and who will buy season tickets, merchandise etc, do so because they’re supporters of the game. The amount of money invested in the teams means that their team is more likely to attract the better players, and therefore the team is more likely to perform well.

most people aren’t interested in the politics, they’re interested in the game.

There are plenty of controversial figures who have owned premier league teams in the past, Mike Ashley for instance owned Newcastle and he is a repugnant individual, But the Newcastle supporters are Newcastle supporters because of the team not the owner.

If you support a team because of the sport they play that support doesn’t change just because of who’s paying for it. The owner could be gone tomorrow, but the team will still be there.

@Ifailed

you could try boycotting the Tory party who have received £2 million from Russian backers.

This ^

But people will still vote Tory won't they

How can you boycott something you don't buy in the first place?

That aside, its more than boycotting that's probably only Russian in name. You'd probably have to stop using most of your fuel. Even then would It make any noticeable difference?

@TheUsualShitshow

Good luck, there won't be many people willing to give up their season tickets in protest. Oligarchs already have more money than they can spend in their lifetime, withholding your £500 or whatever is meaningless.

are you going to stop using gas and things that contain precious metal like the electronics you are using now?

good luck with that.

Boycotts don’t really harm a government, they can harm individuals/private businesses, but that will have zero impact on the war.

What particular companies/products are you no longer buying OP? Gas, certain electronics, oil, so petrol/diesel, products made from oil.

Do you have a season ticket you are going to give up OP? You can do what you want no one is going to think its unreasonable of you not to go to the football.

Op went quiet rather quickly!

If this is something you spend money on OP and you feel strongly about it then boycott it and stop spending. I don't spend any money on football tickets or merchandise so it's not something I can do and I suspect that's the case for many others. If you don't spend money on football then it's not really your place to tell others to boycott it.

I am a Chelsea supporter, I will not be boycotting. Roman Abramovich could sell the club whenever he wants. He won't go bankrupt. The 1000's of employees who work for the club could though.

I really do understand the urge to want to do something OP, I really do. But boycotting, protesting, writing outraged social media posts make no difference when you're dealing with someone like Putin. He doesn't give a shit.

Are you also going to boycott American, British, Chinese, Saudi, UAE, and Croatian owned clubs or is your ire at injustice fully fueled by what's on what's on your screen?

Also why stop at sports club, if you feel strongly about boycotting organisations linked to countries that have instigated unjust wars or committed human rights violations surely you should extend that boycott to all goods and services?

Instead of pointless boycotting ideas, we should all be writing to our MPs to demand that the government strip the assets of the Russian oligarchs held in the UK, including the millions of pounds worth of property in London. We should also demand that these figures and their families have their visas revoked. No more educating their children in our elite schools.

The sanctions announced yesterday were an improvement from the day before, but still pathetically weak. We need to make the UK a hostile place for Putin's supporters, else we may as well be fighting alongside the Russians for all the good our measures will make.

@AlternativePerspective

This post is hilarious.

You say that we can’t do much on the ground so we should be boycotting football teams, and your question asked whether you would be unreasonable to boycott them.

So you’re asking whether you’re being unreasonable to not buy a season ticket which you never owned in the first place and didn’t have any intentions of buying anyway, but presumably if you declare that you won’t be buying one because of the poor Ukrainian people then people will feel you’re doing your bit.

Virtue signalling at its finest.

This is completely virtue signalling. There is nothing that individual citizens can do in this situation. Boycotting a football team you don't even support certainly won't help.

I suppose we could all refuse to vote Labour in future elections, that would be a symbolic boycott that might make Starmer et al take notice. Putin seems to want to return to the glory days of the CCCP, Labour have been in bed with communism for the majority of their history, it's a stain they can't wash away.

I'm not sure boycotting football clubs would do much good. Chelsea for example is a vanity project for its owner, a plaything. It's not there to be profitable. Whether or not fans turn up is largely irrelevant.

We could all boycott gas and electricity because some of that comes from Russia. But that would be inconvenient and wouldn't do much good because other people would just buy it.

The thing is, if you boycott things owned by Russians (who individually may not be for the invasion) then surely you should boycott anything connected with China too, most of Asia really. And the Middle East. And most of the Americas. And Africa. And Europe. And Scotland. Or do you only care about atrocities that are regularly on your TV screen and ignore what those governments are getting up to?