Russian Chelsea

Russian Chelsea (2026) is a 94-minute documentary you can watch online right now, and it starts from an odd premise: a group of Russians trying to pull a once-storied British football club back from decline. The pitch sounds simple. The execution wasn't.

Money turns out to be the easy part. What actually slows things down is a wall of local skepticism, a completely different club culture, and the founders themselves figuring out how to work together. Voices in the film include former Chelsea manager Avram Grant, ex-Russia international Alexey Smertin, broadcasters Vasily Utkin and Alexander Smotrov, and coach Slaviša Jokanović.

Director Alexey Zharkov skips the triumphant-takeover cliché and lets the friction stay on screen — a small personal project turning into a test of whether a shared love of the game can actually cross a border. Rated 18+, no gloss applied. Catch Russian Chelsea streaming on iFILM.