Chelsea & Roman Abramovich: Is this a moment of reckoning for English football ownership?

Others of course insist none of this makes it right, and that football clubs – as vital cultural and community assets – should be afforded greater protection than other businesses. And also that, because of the global profile and prestige they offer owners, there now needs to be much greater recognition of the risk that they are exploited for ‘sportswashing’ purposes.

“We’ve got to think now about how we protect our assets,” says Simon Chadwick, global professor of sport at the Emlyon Business School in Paris.

“As a country we need to engage in a much more informed debate about what we want from football, to set aside personal interests and rivalries and decide as a community what we like.”

Chadwick accepts football club ownership simply reflects the country’s willingness over decades to open itself up to investors from across the world as a means of maintaining status, wealth and power.

But he also believes English football has been slow to address unstoppable forces connected to globalisation, digitalisation and the environment, with countries in the East trying to use energy revenues as the basis for diversifying their economies and extending their political influence across the world.

“This is a point in our history,” he warns. “We all have to start waking up because what we all realise is that football has become deeply embedded within a geopolitical network that is very hard to extricate oneself from.

“What it’s done is to raise awareness that we’re exposed and vulnerable to the advances of other countries.”

It is not just Chelsea, of course, who have been exposed by Russia’s invasion.

Everton have suspended their commercial sponsorship arrangements with Russian companies part-owned by oligarch Alisher Usmanov after he had his assets frozen by the European Union because they say he is “a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties” to Putin. Usmanov has denied this and vowed a legal challenge.

Manchester United have had to drop their sponsorship deal with airline Aeroflot. Uefa has had to do the same with state-controlled energy giant Gazprom.

Fifa meanwhile faces renewed accusations it may have helped embolden Putin when, despite the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Russian president was able to use the 2018 World Cup to project a positive image of his country to the world.

The sense of overdue reckoning that English football is now experiencing will intensify this week when senior executives from both the FA and Premier League – along with the Sports Minister – are questioned by MPs on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee about the role of Russian money in both the ownership and sponsorship of clubs.

But as Newcastle United have discovered, the conflict in Ukraine will force questions about the motivation of investors from other countries too, as well as a focus on the source of funds.

Since the UAE joined China and India by refusing to back a US resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Russia’s invasion, there has been renewed scrutiny on Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owners.

City are of course majority owned by the investment group of Sheikh Mansour, a member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family and deputy prime minister of the UAE.

Will Pep Guardiola – like Howe – now be asked to comment on the UAE’s role in the Saudi-led military operation in Yemen? Or the country’s human rights record?

Asked last week for his thoughts on Chelsea, Guardiola said he would wait to be more informed before giving his opinion: “We are the face of the club, we are here every few days. You have to understand there are subjects we don’t know and don’t have an hour lesson to speak and talk about.

“It looks like we have to know absolutely everything. We are human beings – I don’t know.”

City, like Newcastle and Chelsea, reject any suggestion of ‘sportswashing’ of course.

City, for instance, can point to the profit they made in their most recent accounts, and insist they are now a sustainable organisation, with Abu Dhabi’s investment helping to regenerate the east of Manchester. They point out that the club has Chinese and American investors as well as the controlling stake from the UAE.

Similarly, Newcastle United have vowed to invest in the wider north-east of England region.

But it feels significant that the DCMS committee has warned on Tuesday it will also ask “if the government is concerned about investments in UK sport from other nations with poor human rights records such as China and Saudi Arabia”.