Roman Abramovich changed the game in England. The oligarch propelled Chelsea from being a team on the fringe of power in the domestic game to a side feared across Europe in the flash of a chequebook.
Not many of the fans at Stamford Bridge cared where the Russian’s money had come from. There was plenty of anger outside west London about how Abramovich inflated the transfer market and bullied rivals with cash but the emotion most common among opposition supporters was envy. Everyone wanted their own sugar daddy.
