Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea football club when they were under a lot of financial pressure in 2003. The Russian businessman paid £140 million to takeover the club, which was the biggest in British football at the time, as reported by The BBC.
Chelsea had narrowly just qualified for the Champions League, which probably helped sway the decision of Abramovich buying the club.
But there was one man who claims that he had an influence over the decision of Abramovich, who was also looking at Tottenham to buy, and that is former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson.
As reported by The Times, just as Abramovich was pondering his move, agent Pini Zahavi invited Eriksson to meet a friend who wanted to invest in football. That man was of course, Roman Abramovich.
The three had a meeting and Abramovich revealed he was looking to buy a football club in London, but was unsure whether to pick Chelsea or Tottenham.
As The Times report, Eriksson helped him out with that decision.
He said:
“We met at Les Ambassadeurs [a casino and club in London]. There were three men standing there. One is properly dressed, the other is so-so and the third, I thought he was the driver. Of course that was Roman.
“He wanted to buy a club in Moscow so we went to Moscow for three days, Pini, him and me. We saw all the clubs and I said buy Dinamo. They had the best facilities.
“I went on holiday and his right-hand man phoned. Roman had changed his mind. He wants to buy a club in London. Tottenham or Chelsea? I said, ‘What does he want to do?’ He said he wants to win. I said, ‘So buy Chelsea. There you have to change half the team. Tottenham you have to change the whole team.’”
The rest as they say, is history…
