Wikipedia Marina Granovskaya Chelsea manager Abramovich’s assistant

Marina Granovskaya: general information

• Full name: Marina Granovskaya
• Date of Birth: January 13, 1975
• Place of birth: –
• Height: –
• Weight: –
• Brief biography: Marina Granovskaya is the main person in Chelsea after Roman Abramovich
  Education: In 1997, she graduated from Moscow State University with honors.

Marina Granovskaya biography

The main woman of world football. Abramovich’s right hand. Approximately for such keywords, the Internet contains information about Marina Granovskaya, the director of Chelsea, who is secretly considered the main manager in the London club.

A native of Moscow has been in office for more than 8 years and during this time she has become famous for her strong character, power of speech and unbanal approach to transfers. This helped her get a discount on a number of top players, reconcile Jose Mourinho with Roman Abramovich and knock out a contract with Nike for Chelsea on? 60 million per year (valid until 2032 and is the sixth largest deal in the world).

At the same time, Marina Granovskaya is an extremely secretive person. Finding unique information about her is like a research feat. See for yourself. On the official website of Chelsea, only a couple of paragraphs are devoted to her. Born in Russia, but has dual (+Canada) citizenship. In 1997, she graduated from Moscow State University with honors and began working at Sibneft, which was then managed by Roman Abramovich.

Since then, Granovskaya has been assisting Abramovich in many matters as a senior advisor, and in 2010 acted as the owner’s representative on Chelsea’s boards of directors.

After another 3 years, she officially joined the board of the club as a director. She speaks fluent English and speaks several European languages. Everything, there is no more information about the person who determines the appearance of the current Chelsea on the official website of the club.

Marina Granovskaya in social networks and according to the descriptions of friends

Data from other open sources only slightly expand the understanding of who Marina Granovskaya is, but they do not paint a complete picture. At the request of “Marina Granovskaya” in social networks, everything is not deaf. There are pages on Facebook and Odnoklassniki. From the first, it is only possible to learn that Granovskaya worked at the Millhouse Capital investment company (Abramovich’s first business in England) and studied at Moscow school 1113 (with an in-depth study of music and choreography; now school 2054). The rest of the information is hidden by the privacy settings.

But there are more details in Odnoklassniki, and it seems that the page is not fake.

This is indicated by common photos with friends (classmates) on the pages of these same friends and the exact data on studying at Moscow State University (Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​and Regional Studies). There is also data on completed schools, but there are two of them at once and they do not agree with the data indicated on Facebook – 1217 (now gymnasium 1531) and 1255 (with in-depth study of the English language). It would be logical to assume that it was school 1255 that was the main one, because it was hardly possible to enter and graduate from Moscow State University with honors without a language background. But this is a matter of conjecture and interpretation.

Plus, it is this school that speaks for its proximity to Moscow State University (8 km or 2 metro stations between the main building of the university and the school). And also a man named Andrey Minkov studied there – the only one of Marina’s friends with a Canadian place of residence in his profile.

Perhaps Marina Granovskaya received dual citizenship through him, because there are not many alternative options.

Of the suitable Granovskaya – work in the country (no data on this), a business opened in the country (no information), the presence of a family or close relatives in the country (again, there is no information about this), or the most likely option is the presence of investments in Canadian provinces from $150,000.

But the most important thing that the page in Odnoklassniki hides is information about relatives. Marina’s brother marked a man with the nickname Libes Maxim. He has a few other friends with a similar surname (Libes). I do not dare to say, but it seems that the names of Liebes and Granovskaya are connected. Perhaps Maxim is Marina’s cousin. And add to the picture an interesting fact about the Liebes family – they are from Saratov, and Roman Abramovich was born there.

On the one hand, this is just a set of unconfirmed facts, on the other hand, several crazy theories can be built on them.

There are a few more details of the portrait of Marina Granovskaya on the net. One of her teachers at Moscow State University, in an interview with SE, described her as a “gray mouse” and added that while studying at the university there was nothing special about her. Sports Lifestyle Africa was revealed as a “hermit”, recalling that Marina did not give a single full-fledged interview and still keeps her relatives and marital status a secret. There is not even banal data on height (based on the photo, she is half a head shorter than the 178-centimeter Mason Mount) and weight on the Internet.

Non-publicity of Marina Granovskaya does not prevent her from being a cool manager. On the contrary, the Telegraph says that Roman Abramovich appreciates her, including for this. When the oligarch had problems with the British government, it was Marina who was his eyes and ears in London.

What does Marina Granovskaya do at Chelsea?

Since 2014, the media has called her almost the chief operating officer in the club. After Ron Gurlay left Chelsea, it was she who took up most of the football issues – transfers, the formation of a salary base and control over the scout network (they say Granovskaya was the author of the idea of ​​​​creating a rental network throughout Europe). Club President Bruce Buck deals with strategic matters (such as joining the Super League) and commercial agreements.

Transfers are the main task for Granovskaya. It was through transactions that she created the image of one of the most uncompromising and firm managers in the world. The role of Granovskaya in the negotiations is the solution of financial and economic issues and knocking out the conditions necessary for the club.

Why is Granovskaya so cool?

According to the agents who worked with Granovskaya, she is strict in negotiations, but fair, and is also constantly included in the process. “She is constantly working. It often happened that she answered at midnight if she did not have the opportunity to respond during the working day, ”says one of The Athletic’s agents. Other respondents of the publication confirm the professionalism and honesty of the Russian lady. She has no favorites among agents, she is not interested in scams and mind games in negotiations. She has an ideal reputation built on firmness, composure and lack of unnecessary emotions:

“I did three or four deals with Marina, and she was always responsible for the words,” an unnamed agent told The Athletic. – Always spoke directly, was extremely professional and never violated the word. The rest of us in our business behave differently.”

The results of Chelsea on the transfer market and the number of positive cases involving Granovskaya only confirm the words of those who worked with her. Since the 2013/2014 season, Chelsea has been in the top 3 clubs in the world in terms of spending on transfers (1.38 billion), but at the same time it ranks first in terms of income (1.03 billion). The minus of 345 million is easily explained by the purchase of the last two years – the players are still in the club and benefit it.

Thanks to Granovskaya’s active work in selling players, Chelsea easily closes the gaps in the budget. Since 2014, the club has posted an operating loss of 605m, but sales work has helped cover 89% of that. Roughly speaking, Granovskaya provided the club with half a billion euros.

How does it work?

It is easier to understand why Granovskaya is considered the guru of negotiations and persuasion with specific examples. Thanks to her, Chelsea kept Didier Drogba in 2009. Drogba scored only 5 goals during the season and received a six-match suspension for pressing referee Tom Henning Evrebø in the Champions League semi-finals with Barcelona. Everything went to the departure of Drogba, but Granovskaya, who was not yet officially working at the club, convinced the managers to extend the contract with the striker. Already in the next season, he highlighted the genius of Granovskaya with the title of top scorer and the championship title. Three years later, the striker brought Chelsea the first Champions League Cup.

If Drogba Granovskaya kept it, then with John Terry during the negotiations on a new contract in 2012, she was tough. Terry did not want to sign the agreement and demanded better terms, to which he received the answer: “Either you sign this agreement, or you fail.” Outcome: extension of the agreement on the terms of Granovskaya for three years.

José Mourinho Granovskaya also appears in the history of a comeback at Chelsea. In 2007, Roman Abramovich quarreled with the Portuguese and obviously did not plan to have any business with him in the future. But Granovskaya convinced the owner of Chelsea to change his mind and turn to Jose again. Abramovich succumbed, and in return received the Premier League title in the 2014/2015 season.

The sale of Eden Hazard to Real Madrid is another bright case. Florentino Perez wanted to move Hazard to Madrid, but did not make a solid offer to Chelsea for a long time. In the summer of 2018, it finally appeared (about 150 million), but Granovskaya did not agree to it. It turned out like with Terry: either 200 million, or the deal fails. Perez did not wait for Hazard’s contract to end and agreed to a deal of 160 million

“When you communicate with Marina, her “no” means “no”, which is rare in football. Usually such a response from other directors means that you have to hold a dozen more meetings and eventually agree on a price. But when Granovskaya told you no, you won’t hear about her anymore, ”one of the unnamed agents describes the Chelsea director like this.

Another trump card of Granovskaya is hyperpreparedness. For example, when Chelsea became interested in N’Golo Kante, PSG entered the fight with the Londoners. The Frenchman was not opposed to returning to his homeland, and the Parisians were going to pay the amount required by Leicester. But Granovskaya outplayed the situation in her favor.

Chelsea went to the player’s agents and raised the transfer fee to 30% (i.e. up to 12 million). Granovskaya knew that French laws forbid clubs from paying commissions above 10%, so PSG would definitely be left out of the game. A letter to Abramovich about the concluded transfer with a horse commission began with the words “Don’t faint, he deserves it.” As a result, Granovskaya closed the deal for 50.5 million, and Kante still shines at Chelsea.

The strength of Marina Granovskaya inside the club is so great that for her sake, coaches are limited at Stamford Bridge.

When signing the contract, Antonio Conte asked her not to get involved in the transfer policy. To this, Conte instantly received an increase in salary with a read proposal to be silent. Of course, Conte did not cope and began to accuse Granovskaya of making the wrong transfers and not consulting with him at all. It got to the point that Conte, in recent months in London, communicated with Granovskaya through his assistant, Carlo Cudicini.

Maurizio Sarri’s relationship with Granovskaya also did not work out. So much so that the coach was credited with the phrase “God created women to carry sperm from bed to toilet, and not to run the club.” Later it was denied, but the Italian left the club a year later. In an interview, he sadly recalled parting with Chelsea: “I made a big mistake by leaving Chelsea. It was all the fault of the desire to return to Italy at any cost. Marina Granovskaya did not want me to leave the team. Chelsea are a great club and in the years that followed were able to attract a lot of young players who would suit me.”

It seems that Granovskaya won here too, and also saved Chelsea ~ 26.6 million. The club had to pay compensation to Sarri, but it all ended with the transfer (!) of the coach to Juventus for 4 million.

Did Granovskaya have any failures?

Perhaps only one is large – Kepa Arrizabalaga. In the summer of 2018, Chelsea negotiated with Thibault Courtois an extension of a contract expiring in a year. But the Belgian refused because he wanted to join Real Madrid. Granovskaya negotiated with him, and in parallel, Chelsea talked with Roma about Alison’s transfer. And the Londoners made significant progress in these discussions – Alison was considered as a fallback if Courtois could not be kept.

After the World Cup, Courtois simply did not come to the training camp and achieved a transfer to Real for 35 million. At this time, Liverpool intercepted Alison. Granovskaya had no alternatives left – she had to buy Kepa, the second number from the shortlist. And he still remains the worst deal of the Russian manager.

What do they say about her?

For a more complete understanding of the person of Granovskaya, it is enough to read British journalists and people from the world of football:

• Even the notorious Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis knew who he was dealing with when he didn’t want to sell Edinson Cavani to Chelsea. And he sang the song “Marina” at the press conference of Rafael Benitez in Napoli.
• He also appealed to Granovskaya when Maurizio Sarri wanted to bomb Napoli not only with the purchase of Jorginho, but also with the transfers of Dries Mertens and Kalidou Koulibaly. Granovskaya took pity and did not entice the players.
• Probably, it is precisely this attitude of colleagues and opponents that best shows the weight of Marina Granovskaya in the football world. No place in the Forbes lists and other ratings of the main women in football. Not quantitative results of the transfer policy, but immense respect, which is very difficult for a woman to achieve in a one-centered football world.

Marina Granovskaya in social networks

• Marina Granovskaya Instagram https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/marinagranovskaia/
• OdnoklassnikiLink

Marina Granovskaya photo