Back in 2016, I was on a bus as it toured around some of London's most salubrious neighbourhoods.
I was writing a book called ‘The Billionaires Club’ about the super rich investing in football. I wanted to know: where did all this new money come from? And why was so much of it flowing into the game?
The bus trip gave me some insight into that. It was a ‘Kleptocracy Tour’, hosted by Vladimir Ashurkov, a Russian exile who was the executive manager at Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny's Anti Corruption Foundation. With Ashurkov as our guide, we viewed the fabulously appointed palaces and opulent mansions bought by the global super-rich using fortunes siphoned from the world's kleptocracies. Russia led the pack: much of its cash had been plowed into prime London real estate. And, of course, into a different kind of prime real estate: football clubs.
