Russian businessman Roman Abramovich has settled his libel suit against publisher HarperCollins over allegations contained in Catherine Belton’s Putin’s People, the Guardian reports.
Abramovich, the owner of the famed soccer team Chelsea F.C., had taken issue with a claim in Belton’s book that he had bought the football club in 2003 after being ordered to do so by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“While the book always included a denial that Mr. Abramovich was acting under anybody’s direction when he purchased Chelsea, the new edition will include a more detailed explanation of Mr. Abramovich’s motivations for buying the club,” HarperCollins said in a statement. As part of the settlement, the publisher apologized for the book not being sufficiently clear.
Belton’s book, published in the U.S. in 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, details Putin’s rise to power in Russia. A critic for Kirkus called it “an eyebrow-raising book that, among other things, helps connect some of the dots of the Mueller Report.”
Under the settlement, HarperCollins will amend the book and add statements from a spokesperson for Abramovich, and from Chelsea F.C., denying that Putin was behind the team’s purchase. It will also make a donation to charity.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Belton said she was “glad” that a settlement had been reached in the case.
“Throughout, HarperCollins has staunchly defended the book,” she said. “I could not have wished for a better or braver publisher more committed to public interest journalism.”
— Catherine Belton (@CatherineBelton) December 22, 2021
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
