Roman Abramovich has apparently had enough. He’s taken matters into his own hands. He rowed, rowed, rowed his boat, gently down a stream, all the way to the Isle of Capri, just off the coast of Naples. There, he stormed into Aurelio De Laurentiis’ hotel room, passing Carlo Ancelotti on the way with a cold stare, held out his hand, and said “Hello, my name is Roman Abramovich. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
Our self-made managerial nightmare is over!
Or is it?
On Saturday, random Italian publication ‘Il Napolista’ reported that Roman Abramovich’s yacht Eclipse was spotted in Capri. He’s supposedly there to help get the Sarri deal over the line. Why Capri? Capri is also where Napoli owner De Laurentiis and new Napoli head coach Carlo Ancelotti are having their preseason planning meeting. We know this, because there are tons of photos, some blurry, some less so, of the two of them on land and on water as well.
It’s a good story. Too bad there is no actual evidence of it happening. Abramovich may or may not have been there (there are certainly no pictures to prove one way or another), but his big yacht certainly was not.
Abramovich e De Laurentiis a Capri. Il magnate è col suo yacht Eclipse. https://t.co/Zc6OWZMyzT pic.twitter.com/a5NXRcUiWa
— ilnapolista (@napolista) July 7, 2018
The Eclipse is no longer the biggest yacht in the world — that title was taken from it in 2013 by the Azzam, which belongs to the President of the UAE — but it’s still a rather large vessel that’s easy to spot. So surely their report would have a picture of it, no? Or someone would? They have pictures of ADL and Carlo, how hard can it be to take a picture of a stationary thing that’s even bigger than ADL’s ego? Easy, right? Nope! The picture used in the story was taken in May 2010, not long after the boat was built. Strike one.
As a rather large vessel with a crew and a captain, the Eclipse also cannot just go trawling around as it pleases. Like airplanes, it has to file route plans and it is tracked by multiple services that are available publicly. Neither MarineTraffic nor VesselFinder show the Eclipse in Capri. They both show it as on the French Riviera, either off the coast of Antibes or Golfe-Juan, a good 800km from Capri. VesselFinder shows that the Eclipse has been hanging out in the area since arriving from Gibraltar in early May. Before Gibraltar, the Eclipse was in the Caribbean. Abramovich doesn’t charter out the jewel of his fleet; those are either his own or his trustees’ movements.
Abramovich obviously isn’t tied to the mast of his yacht, so he can be wherever he wants to be (even the UK, though not for work!). He could very well be in Capri, taking care of business. But his yacht certainly wasn’t there, which put the entirely story from ‘Il Napolista’ into doubt.
This isn’t the Sarri resolution we’ve been looking for. Move along.