One of the bidders for Chelsea last summer, Sir Martin Broughton, says that Roman Abramovich still has an influence at the club.
The former owner, who had to sell the club due to sanctions on Russians in the UK, invested 1bn to bring Chelsea to the top table of European football.
Broughton, who led a consortium to buy the club including Crystal Palace investors Josh Harris and Dave Blitzer, ultimately lost out to Todd Boehly and his Clearlake consortium.
Speaking at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit, Broughton stated: The strange thing was this was a reluctant seller who was not receiving any of the money, so normally price would be the ultimate dictator. It was not the ultimate dictator here.
We were very much led by Raine, Bruce [Buck] and Marina [Granovskaia] to bid an amount. Agree to put an amount over the next 10 years in this piece, be it the academy, you've got to agree to invest this much into the women's team.
It was very focused. In fact, it was Roman trying to say to the fans, 'I don't want to leave', but if I have to, whoever takes over will do what I would have done."