Roman Abramovich does not pick up the telephone to the groups and individuals who want to buy Chelsea. He has people to say “not for sale” in various different languages on his behalf.

But Todd Boehly may not be quite so easy to shake off and Abramovich will not have to look too far if he ever decides to find out more about the ambitious American.

Boehly, who is worth just under £5billion, has already ruffled the feathers of both Stan Kroenke and Daniel Levy. A simple telephone call to the Arsenal owner or Tottenham Hotspur chairman would most likely prove to be instructive for Abramovich.

Kroenke thought he had bought the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, with a £900million offer that was over £200m more than the previous record sum paid for an American sports team at the time.

But Boehly and his group of investors, which included basketball legend Magic Johnson, blew Kroenke out of the water with a winning bid of £1.3bn, which was almost twice the figure the Miami Dolphins sold for in 2009.

To put the size of that deal in greater context, the Glazer family took over Manchester United in 2005 in a deal valued at £790m and the previous record for a baseball franchise was the £520m the Ricketts family paid for the Chicago Cubs in 2009.