Chelsea give formal role to Abramovich aide Marina Granovskaia

Chelsea have formalised Marina Granovskaia's role at the Europa League winners by confirming Roman Abramovich's long-time senior adviser as a member of the club's plc and executive boards, establishing her as one of the most senior placed women in English football.

The Russia-born Granovskaia has been a key figure behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge since 2010 when she started attending board meetings in an informal capacity, but she will now sit on both the Chelsea plc and the executive boards, with the latter body undertaking the day-to-day running of the club. Her influence has grown significantly over recent years and she attended Monday's press conference with the new manager José Mourinho – whom she had helped reappoint – standing alongside the chairman, Bruce Buck, and the chief executive, Ron Gourlay, in the audience.

Granovskaia is a dual Russian and Canadian national and graduated in 1997 from Moscow State University before beginning work with the Sibneft oil company, then owned by Abramovich. She has worked with the oligarch across his wide range of business interests over the past 16 years, moving to London in 2003 – shortly after the purchase of Chelsea – to deal with his various assets, taking on a de facto chief of staff role. She has also worked closely with another Canadian-Russian national, the Chelsea director Eugene Tenenbaum, who remains a close confidant of Abramovich. Confirmation of her presence as a director on both boards is not related to Mourinho's return, but merely formalises the structure already in place at the club.

She began working more closely on Chelsea matters from 2010, acting as Abramovich's representative in London in support of the board of directors and stepping up her presence both at the club's offices at Stamford Bridge and, most notably, at their Cobham training complex. While the Chelsea owner will normally attend around three of the executive board's monthly meetings over the course of any season – the executive board usually meet at Stamford Bridge, with the football board convening at the training ground – he has a network of advisers on the ground, of whom the multi-lingual Granovskaia has become one of his most trusted.

It is the line of communication between Granovskaia and Abramovich – similar to that enjoyed by Tenenbaum – that has thrust her into this position of relative power. She will speak to the oligarch on other business issues aside from Chelsea but, as the most direct line to the owner whose own interests mean that his visits to Stamford Bridge are relatively rare, she has been key when time has been tight and an immediate decision has been required on the football side. She played a key part in negotiations over the recruitment of players and managers alongside Gourlay and the technical director, Michael Emenalo, was involved in the talks with Liverpool and Benfica to secure Fernando Torres and David Luiz towards the end of the winter transfer window of January 2011, and is understood to have travelled to Madrid in April to discuss Mourinho's return to the club once it became clear he was intent upon leaving the Bernabéu.

The hope is her position on the board will merely simplify communication in advance of Abramovich sanctioning key decisions and, given the role she already plays, her appointment hardly changes the way the club currently functions. Chelsea have a well established, if rather complicated, hierarchical structure under Abramovich's ownership. The plc board now comprises Buck, Tenenbaum, Gourlay and Granovskaia, with that quartet joined on the executive board by the finance and operations director, Chris Alexander, the company secretary, Alan Shaw, and the club secretary, Dave Barnard.

The football club board, meanwhile, comprises Buck, Tenenbaum, Gourlay, Barnard, the football operations director Mike Forde and Emenalo. They focus entirely on football matters, with reports submitted by the manager and medical staff, Emenalo on recruitment and player issues, and, for example, Forde on training techniques and facilities from information he has gleaned visiting institutions around the world. Abramovich usually attends two or three football club board meetings over the course of a season.

Interesting

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jun/14/chelsea-abramovich-aide-marina-granovskaia?

Edited June 14, 201313 yr by Zola

A bit of a non event...

Is she a goer?

A bit of a non event...

How so?

She may have been a key figure in bringing José back.

Maybe she'll be a calming influence on Roman when he gets fed up with a couple of disappointing results.

How so?

She may have been a key figure in bringing José back.

Maybe she'll be a calming influence on Roman when he gets fed up with a couple of disappointing results.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's thread worthy, but this looks like a simple formalisation of the role she's been carrying out for a number of years now.

Is she a goer?

 

 

Nudge is as good as a wink to a blind bat. 

I would.

It's not a non-event at all. In effect for a woman to be given such a role in football is one hell of a headline. Karen Brady apart, women aren't allowed anywhere near this kind of status these days in football. Well done to her I say.

 

Forgot to mention that this site is way behind one of the other Chelsea sites who broke this news a month ago

Edited June 14, 201313 yr by geezer

Oh.

Eva and Marina.........mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Nudge is as good as a wink to a blind bat. 

Is she into....photograpy

Does MoJames ever post in joined up thinking?

Does MoJames ever post in joined up thinking?

What is this joined up thinking you speak of?

What is this joined up thinking you speak of?

 

 

That is an excellent question, sir.

 

It is the expression of ideas arranged in logical fashion and transmitted to fellow human beings through the medium of words.

 

Your question seems to hint at a rudimentary grasp of the concept.

 

Where do find all your your super  pictures, by the way?

Good to see Roman has an equal opportunities agenda.

 

 

Has surrounded himself with "yes" men for years and is now including a "yes" woman. Well done.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fTlq_AEamI

A night out with the three girls: Eva, Marina and Chelsea.

Good to hear we are really in this century as a club. By this I mean no one is blocking her way just because she is not a he. No doubt Marina is there for her ability alone.

Don't give me all that old bollocks about women earning their rightful place in high ranking positions within football!

 

This Marina is clearly there simply to make the tea and do the washing up, while Eva's main job is washing the kit.

 

Women in football, pah!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abramovich's chief of staff? That doesn't bode well at all.

I agree, it's a clear sign that Roman has lost interest and is looking to sell Chelsea at the earliest available opportunity.

What I mean is that there is a new powerful voice at the club who has no football experience and who is totally loyal to Abramovich. This is exactly the kind of person you'd expect to see behind decisions like hiring Rafa Benitez and shoehorning Fernando Torres into the team.

What I mean is that there is a new powerful voice at the club who has no football experience and who is totally loyal to Abramovich. This is exactly the kind of person you'd expect to see behind decisions like hiring Rafa Benitez and shoehorning Fernando Torres into the team.

So you think that she is Emenalo and Ancelotti rolled into one? Emenalo is the one responsible for Rafa (along with I assume Rafa's parents), and Ancelotti wanted Torres 6 months earlier (admittedly before his poor form), and although he got him late, still got him. When mistakes are made, it's usually because footballing people gave the wrong advice. Football is a complex game and there are many different views on it.

The signing of Torres looked good on paper and I'd imagine the only people in football who predicted a failure of such epic proportions were Liverpool's medical team, but that's irrelevant. Anyone can make a poor signing, but no one with any footballing brain could possibly have thought that going into this season (his third at the club, and it's not as if he's broken the habit since then) with Torres as our main centre forward and only Sturridge as backup was a good idea. They served Di Matteo with a bowl of sh*t and then complained at the first hint of it smelling bad. That is not the way to run a football club, that is self-preservation.

 

Granovskaia comes from a culture of playing the numbers game, of cutthroat politics where flesh and spirit are acceptable losses in the name of making a profit. Can you honestly tell me that Ron Gourlay has the interests of the supporters and the team collective at heart?  Considering the problems Mourinho (a man who so proudly proclaims that he is "one of us") has had in the past with meddling advisors and directors, of businesspeople telling a footballing prodigy how to run a football club, does this seem like a good idea? Of course football is complex, that's why we want as little business influence as possible corrupting it.

 

 

From the Independent:

 

it is Granovskaia who has the most direct line to the club's Russian owner. She is capable of reaching the Russian billionaire quickly when the club need an immediate decision on key matters. Granovskaia played a key role in the signing of Fernando Torres at the end of the transfer window in January 2011.

Though to be fair if he does head for Barca this summer Torres leaves with Europa League, Fa cup and Champions League medals to his name. While he has not been great and many of us would be happy to see him leave, end of the day we have done pretty darn good while he has been here.