Roman Abramovich could have bought Arsenal instead of Chelsea, but was told the club was not for sale by Swiss bankers.
It is a revelation made in new book, The Club, written by Wall Street journalists Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg, and The Sun reports that the landscape of the Premier League could have been very different if the Russian billionaire had invested in the north side of London.
The book claims that in 2003, Abramovich hired Swiss bank UBS to look at the economics of top-flight football clubs in England and was told that Arsenal were 'categorically not for sale'.