Is The Charming Mr Cherney Just One Oligarch Too Far?

Is The Charming Mr Cherney Just One Oligarch Too Far?
By Keith Dovkants and Adrian Gatton
6 December 2006
Evening Standard (London)

Banned from the US, dogged by Russian mafia rumours and facing fraud charges, this is the billionaire eyeing a mansion in London and a Premiership football club.

There was an especially disappointed fan amongst those watching Chelsea beat Levski Sofia 2-0 in the Champions League at Stamford Bridge last night. Billionaire business magnate Michael Cherney is Levki's honorary president and had dearly wanted to see his side giving Roman Abramovich's Blues a thrashing. Cherney and Abramovich have history. Until he Anglicised his name, Michael Cherney was Mikhail Chernoy, one of the last men standing when the smoke cleared after Russia's bloody Aluminium War in the 1990s.

He and Abramovich go back a long way, to the time when they both made colossal fortunes out of the wreckage of the old Soviet Union.

But while Abramovich settled in London with £7bn in the bank, buying a football club, a country house and various homes in Belgravia, Cherney (as we must now call him) has been unable to shake off the shadows of the old days. He is stalked constantly by allegations of links to the Russian mafia, his fortune was created during a violent business war and today he finds himself facing serious fraud charges.

Cherney, 54, would like to put all this behind him and, we can reveal, follow Abramovich's example by starting a new life in London. He is currently based in Israel, but he has been looking at one of the capital's most expensive homes, the Emir of Qatar's Beechwood House in Hampstead.

The property, set in 11-acres and guarded by a state-of-the-art security system, has been discreetly offered for sale at £65m. Cherney looked at it recently on a visit to London and is believed to consider it ideal, not least because it has extensive accommodation for staff, including, of course, bodyguards.

According to a reliable source Cherney has also consulted the football agent Pini Zahavi, about the possibility of buying a Premiership club. Unlike Abramovich, Cherney has had a lifelong passion for football. He turned Levski Sofia into a winning side when he bought the club and has pumped in millions of dollars. But difficulties with the Bulgarian authorities over business deals forced him to sell.

Officially, he is an honorary president, but insiders chuckle at this title, and it has been widely sugested that although he does not own the club on paper, in reality, he does ...

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