Abramovich ‘eligible to change into Israeli’

The Russian-Jewish billionaire proprietor of Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovich, has flown to Tel Aviv after being came across eligible for Israeli citizenship.

Immigration officers told the BBC that he became interviewed final week at the Israeli embassy in Moscow. He has faced delays in renewing his UK visa.

His spokesman would no longer observation on studies citizenship had been granted.

Mr Abramovich, fifty one, could well perchance be the richest person in Israel.

His UK investor visa reportedly expired some weeks within the past nevertheless the British authorities has refused to observation on his particular person case.

The delay in issuing him a recent one comes amid increased diplomatic tensions between London and Moscow after the poisoning of faded Russian stare Sergei Skripal in southern England.

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Mr Abramovich didn’t relief the FA cup final at Wembley earlier this month when Chelsea beat Manchester United.

Israeli media studies advise he has been given an identification card in Israel below the Law of Return, which enables Jews to change into electorate of Israel.

The Times of Israel mentioned the interior ministry had confirmed Mr Abramovich arrived in Israel on Monday and that he had immigrated to the nation.

He’s a frequent customer to Israel and equipped a resort in Tel Aviv in 2015 that studies advise he has turned into true into a impart.

Israel passport holders are allowed to enter Britain with out a visa for short stays.

Mr Abramovich is worth $eleven.5bn (£eight.6bn), according to Forbes magazine. The pass could well perchance repay financially as recent Israeli electorate are exempt from paying tax on international earnings for 10 years.

Who’s Roman Abramovich?

• One in every of Russia’s richest of us, he equipped Chelsea FC in 2003

• He reportedly equipped dolls forward of constructing his fortune in oil within the Nineties after the collapse of the faded Soviet Union

• Mr Abramovich became a one-time commerce accomplice of the gradual Boris Berezovky, an associate of faded Russian President Boris Yeltsin

• Critics advise the two businessmen extinct their Kremlin « family » ties to carry out key impart companies for beneath market price

• Mr Abramovich served as governor of Russia’s Chukotka diagram

• He’s believed to be shut to recent Russian President Vladimir Putin