Roman is the city's sweetest Sugar Daddy

Since taking over Chelsea last month in a £200m deal, Abramovich has already invested around £75m on new players - and the proposed signing of Hernan Crespo will push him up to the £100m mark. He has still not finished writing out the cheques to make sure the west London club are successful in the lucrative Champions League.

It is just loose change to a man who owns helicopters, yachts and homes in Knightsbridge and West Sussex in addition to 95 per cent of the west London club.

Lewis, who made £30m selling a restaurant business and millions more trading on the equitiesand foreign exchange markets, is the only London footballing figure who can get anywhere near Abramovich. But although the Bahamas-based Lewis has an estimated fortune of £1.8bn he has shown very little interest in Spurs since the company he backed, Enic, took control.

Sugar, who still owns 13 per cent of Tottenham despite reducing his influence at White Hart Lane, is a middle-of-the-table contender in comparison with an estimated fortune of £609m.

Fayed, listed as £486m, may have spent £100m on getting Fulham into the Premiership but Abramovich looks likely to outspend him by millions.

Arsenal's Fiszman, who made much of his £125m fortune in diamonds, and Millwall's Theo Paphitis, worth £85m after a successful career in stationery and lingerie businesses, are much further back.

Interestingly some of London's players are amassing fortunes already.

Arsenal defender Sol Campbell already has £15m to his name - helped by a lucrative Nike contract. Chelsea's new signing Juan Sebastian Veron is worth at least £10m and Spurs striker Robbie Keane is among the top 10 richest under-30s in Ireland with £4m.

An analysis of the money in the game outside of London, however, shows how Abramovich could help Chelsea take on the might of Manchester United, the world's richest football club. The Russian is worth all of the richest figures from north of Watford put together.

The Moores family, who sold retailing and mail order company Littlewoods last year for £750m, are the richest footballing family with £1.25bn and have a stake of around £40m in Liverpool.

Although JP McManus and John Magnier are the biggest shareholders in United and recently increased their stake to 11.4 per cent, their estimated combined wealth of £476m looks tiny compared to Abramovich's billions.