Arnaud Ramsay - Dmitry Rybolovlev

DMITRY RYBOLOVLEV

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

Biteback Publishing Ltd

Westminster Tower

3 Albert Embankment

London SE1 7SP

Copyright Arnaud Ramsay 2017

Arnaud Ramsay has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the publishers prior permission in writing.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

ISBN 978-1-78590-329-8

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Derrire le sourire, with Antoine Griezmann, Robert Laffont, 2017.

Head High: Confessions of an Enfant Terrible of Rugby, with Mathieu Bastareaud, Robert Laffont, 2015.

Quest-ce qui fait courir Tapie?, drawings by Faro, Jungle!, 2015.

Dans les griffes du Qatar, with Zahir Belounis, Robert Laffont, 2015.

Prsident Platini, with Antoine Grynbaum, Grasset, 2014.

Champions du monde 98, secrets et pouvoir, with Gilles Verdez, ditions du Moment, 2014.

Ma mauvaise rputation, with Mourad Boudjellal, La Martinire, 2013, Points, 2015.

Ligue 1, 80 ans de football professionnel, with Paul Dietschy, Solar, 2013.

Paris vaut bien un cheikh, drawings by Philippe Bercovici, 12 Bis ditions, 2013.

Perles de foot, Fetjaine, 2013.

Laurent Blanc, la face cache du Prsident, Fetjaine, 2012.

Ce si gentil David Douillet, ditions du Moment, 2011.

Anelka par Anelka, Hugo & Cie, 2010.

Jean dOrmesson ou llgance du bonheur, Le Toucan, 2009.

nergie positive, with Charles Beigbeder, Le Toucan, 2008.

Bixente, with Bixente Lizarazu and Jacques Bungert, Grasset, 2007.

Snake, with Youri Djorkaeff, Grasset, 2006.

Terrain min: football, la foire aux illusions, with Boris Ngouo, Michel Lafon, 2004.

English-language edition adapted and updated by Glenn Moore.

To Martin, Amlie and their beloved Papou

I magine a studio of scriptwriters, brought together by a producer keen to develop a feature film. Bottle-fed on the Hollywood approach, theyre racking their brains to sketch out an original portrait of the main character and furnish him with flaws. Over the course of some enlightened meetings, the ingredients are intertwined, outlining the meandering path of his unique trajectory, fleshing him out while advancing the plot. At last, after much consideration, his character emerges and the biographical elements are defined in such a way as to better identify with him and follow him on his path.

Anyone reading the resulting synopsis would learn the following: the protagonist is an only child, a boy, born in the mid-1960s at the foot of the Ural Mountains in the USSR, where Leonid Brezhnev has recently become General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party a title that has not been used since Stalin. His parents are doctors and Mr. X follows in their footsteps, spending seven years studying cardiology at Perm University, located in his hometown, where his father and mother both teach. While still a student, he marries a classmate and becomes a father at twenty-three. During this period he witnesses the dismantling of his country and the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. Sensing that times are changing, he escapes to Moscow, where he studies economics, before returning home, where he takes advantage of the massive wave of privatisations to create companies and take control of businesses by buying up the vouchers distributed to workers. He purchases one of these companies, which in the space of fifteen years he transforms into a global giant.

It is a success story with its share of disillusionment: eleven months imprisonment after being accused of arranging the assassination of an associate, as well as the collapse of a mine which swallows up 50 million tonnes of potassium and risks an environmental disaster. While based in Switzerland for his safety, the hero is invited by individuals close to Muscovite power to sell his Uralkali shares, a portion of the capital of which had been listed three years earlier on the London Stock Exchange. At just forty-four years old, he is a billionaire. He travels by private jet, sails his yacht, buys actor Will Smiths villa in Hawaii and the Maison de LAmiti in Florida from Donald Trump, real estate tycoon and future President of the United States.

In 2011, this man who cultivates discretion and who, officially, claims to speak only Russian is drawn to the glitz and glamour of Monaco and decides to relocate to this captivating place. On Christmas Eve, he suddenly finds himself the chairman of the principalitys football club, AS Monaco, which is bottom of Ligue 2. He authorises the spending of millions of euros to strengthen the team and, four-and-a-half years later, wins the Ligue 1 title and reaches the semi-finals of the European Champions League.

Further spicing up this story, which already has a touch of a thriller about it, throw in interminable divorce proceedings and a soon to be ex-wife demanding half of his fortune against a backdrop of trusts in Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands, as well as a legal battle against the worlds largest art shipper, from whom hed bought almost forty paintings for around 2 billion over a ten-year period, and who he now accuses of fraud and money laundering.

So, is it credible or improbable, this fiction apparently concocted by scriptwriters? Its hard to believe, but all of it is absolutely true. Dmitry Rybolovlev since he is the chairman of AS Monaco in question exists in flesh and blood. Ive even met him.

Without judging Rybolovlevs personality, his fate intrigued me: his mysteries and his secrets, too. Through concentric circles, after long weeks of advance and retreat, I was able to gain access to the man described thus by the Swiss daily newspaper Le Temps:

Those who are acquainted with him describe a cold, changeable creature who is impossible to decipher. Ice man, stone man, snake or even endive, the metaphors abound to describe this man of unrivalled intelligence, yet inexpressive, capable of shutting down the slightest hint of emotion on his face. Hes an infinitely crafty individual, who has admirably manoeuvred in a hostile environment, with great flair for power relations, explains a person who sat opposite him during his divorce proceedings. Behind everything he does, there are ulterior motives.

The title of the portrait sets the tone: The oligarch with a mask of ice. Or how about the double-page spread in Libration in May 2015, which begins as follows: Albert II is piqued. The Prince of Monaco has just given an order to the paparazzi: they are banned from photographing him in the company of Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian oligarch whose takeover bid on the Rock of Monaco is turning into insider trading. It matters little that two days before the publication of the article, the billionaire had attended the baptism of Jacques and Gabriella, the five-month-old twins of Albert and Charlne at the Cathdral Notre-Dame-Immacule in Monaco.