The East is red and Chelsea are green with envy. But not for long, if Peter Kenyon, the London club's chief executive, gets his way. He was in Beijing this week as part of his club's wide-eyed bid for global dominance, saying he could turn the world blue in a few years and make Chelsea the top brand in world football.
To do so he plans to focus on three key markets: London, the United States, and China. Although they are strolling to back-to-back Premiership titles, the home market is proving petulant. Stamford Bridge, with its relatively small capacity for a top club - 42,300 - often has thousands of empty seats, even for Champion's League ties.
Facing the ugly prospect of a dwindling support base at home, the club is looking further afield to try to recoup some of the #500 million Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich has pumped into his football fetish.
In the US, Kenyon has just forged an alliance with AEG, a company that owns four Major League Soccer franchises, and out here he has come up with an Olympic angle in an effort to curry Chinese favour.
The world's largest gathering of football fans would be nice work if he could get it, but that's easier dreamt than done. When it comes to the Premiership, Chinese fans see red - with Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool the passions of choice. Teams like Everton and Manchester City get a boost when their Chinese imports get a run, but Chelsea barely flicker on the radar.
With his oligarch's billions and Jose Mourinho's coaching flair Kenyon thinks he can turn this around by taking China's Olympics soccer team under the club's wing.
This week Kenyon offered the Chinese Football Association a home from home in their new luxury training ground at Cobham in Surrey. Under Mourinho's tutelage, the clubs coaching staff will put the Chinese through their paces in the run up to the games. Some financial backing, tied in with heaps of tactical advice and backroom management support, should help the young team blossom, he told officials. Bringing some clout to the table, he was backed up by London mayor Ken Livingstone and 2012 Games chief Sebastian Coe, himself a life-long Chelsea supporter.
