10 Defining Moments of Roman Abramovich's 10 Years at Chelsea

July 1, 2013 marked 10 years since Roman Abramovich acquired Chelsea Football Club.

Having fallen in love with the beautiful game while watching Manchester United vs. Real Madrid in the Champions League, the Russian oligarch decided to buy a club of his own. He was told that a few English clubs were potentially available: Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea.

Being new to the game, taking on the behemoth of Manchester United was not an appealing prospect, and Spurs lacked the European competition that had sparked his interest in the game. That left Chelsea, who were punching above their weight on the pitch while dealing with an enormous mountain of debt.

The deal was completed swiftly, and the Roman Empire began in earnest. In the intervening decade, Abramovich's billions have transformed Chelsea, and the footballing world as a whole. Here are 10 moments that have defined Roman's rule at Stamford Bridge, organised chronologically.

With thanks to official Chelsea historian Rick Glanvill for compiling the inside information.

Jose Mourinho

Abramovich adopted the "wait and see" policy on arriving at Stamford Bridge, allowing incumbent Claudio Ranieri to continue his tinkering, albeit with a far larger budget than he had become accustomed to. When the Italian failed to deliver any silverware, Roman turned his attentions elsewhere.

Jose Mourinho had just won the Champions League with Porto and was being touted as the greatest young manager in Europe. Excited by the prospect of having an open chequebook and a blank canvas, he accepted the Chelsea job. The rest, as they say, is history, as the self-styled Special One delivered six trophies in his three years in charge. 

However, the Champions League title continued to elude him, and Abramovich grew tired of waiting. The two parted company, setting the trend that has seen 10 different managers take charge of the first-team in the past decade.

The 2004-05 Premier League Title

Chelsea’s 2004-05 Premier League triumph was arguably the defining moment of Abramovich’s reign. With his extravagant signings and arrogant manager, all eyes were on Chelsea, with rival fans hoping for an epic fail that never came.

Once they had reached the top of the league by November, Chelsea didn’t look back, going on to set records for the highest points tally (95) and the fewest goals conceded (15) that still stand today. From the opening 1-0 win over Manchester United to the 1-1 draw away to Newcastle on the final day, Chelsea were champions.

Signing Andriy Shevchenko

The signing of Andriy Shevchenko from AC Milan for £30 million in 2006 was one of the first instances where Roman Abramovich’s day-to-day involvement in the club became clear. Judging by his previous choices, it appears highly unlikely that Jose Mourinho would have asked for such an enormous sum of money to be spent on a 30-year-old striker, and the relationship between Shevchenko and Abramovich cast further doubt on the manager’s involvement in this deal.

There were rumours at the time of his departure that Mourinho’s refusal to play Shevchenko had been a major factor in his downfall, although the Special One has since denied that this was the case.

Shevchenko was a fairly spectacular flop in England, and after seeing off two managers he moved home to Dynamo Kyiv after having been released from his contract at Chelsea.

History appears to be repeating itself with the Fernando Torres fiasco, and Abramovich will be hoping that it will be third time lucky with any future marquee signings.

Cobham

When Abramovich took over, Chelsea's first team were training at Imperial College's Harlington recreation ground. Whilst grass, goalposts and a gym are all that is really needed to train, the facilities were dragging behind the likes of Manchester United, whom Abramovich was desperate to challenge.

The club were granted planning permission for such a facility in Cobham, Surrey, in 2004. Construction began in earnest, and since the official unveiling in 2007, the Academy and Community Pavillion has been added.

This expansion has allowed Chelsea to consolidate all of their training and development on one site. The first-team coach can easily access the training sessions of the youth and reserve teams to assess their development, while the youngsters can watch their senior counterparts and learn from them on the job, as it were.

Cobham has undoubtedly played a huge part in Chelsea's successes over the past decade, and it will be key to the club's continuing development in the future.

Moscow

The Champions League final in 2008 felt as if it were fated for Chelsea, despite Jose Mourinho’s departure earlier in the season. Held in Moscow, with Frank Lampard playing in memory of his recently departed mum, it was surely written in the stars that the Blues would win.

However, it wasn’t to be.

Manchester United dominated the first half and took the lead before the Blues fought back. Lampard’s equaliser brought with it a surge of belief, until extra-time yielded a red card for Didier Drogba in the dying minutes. The match went to penalties, and with Drogba ineligible, John Terry stepped up.

Mr. Chelsea, their Captain, Leader, Legend.

He slipped, and missed.

The emotional aftermath of the eventual loss will have left an impression on Abramovich. As a relative newcomer to the game, and having never experienced the pain of losing in a cup final, he may have wondered what he had let himself in for five years previously.

Debt to Equity

One of the prevailing feelings surrounding Abramovich’s ownership of Chelsea FC was that he could get bored and walk away at any time, leaving the club right back where they started, with a mountain of debt. These fears were alleviated somewhat in 2009 when the Russian converted £340 million of loans into equity at the club, effectively wiping out their debt.

Whilst he is still technically owed £726 million, if he were to leave tomorrow the club are in a strong enough position to avoid administration and the resulting penalties.

Battersea Power Station Bid/ CPO Buyout Attempt

These two moments are intrinsically linked, as Chelsea FC attempted to buy back the freehold of Stamford Bridge from the Chelsea Pitch Owners in order to strengthen their bid for the Battersea Power Station site.

During the 1990s, when Chelsea were in dire financial straits, the supporters banded together to buy the freehold of Stamford Bridge from the club. With property developers and creditors circling, this move was vital to keeping Chelsea’s home from being sold off, and to preventing a move away from West London.

Unfortunately, despite all of their on-field success, Chelsea’s matchday revenue is restricted by the capacity of around 42,000 at Stamford Bridge. With land and development opportunities within the self-imposed three-mile catchment area almost impossible to come by, the Battersea Power Station site seemed like a dream come true. Plans were drawn up for a 60,000-seater stadium, a leisure complex and a number of homes on the site.

However, to leverage a deal, Chelsea would have needed to put Stamford Bridge up for sale, which they couldn’t do without owning the freehold.

When the CPO voted on whether to sell, the "yes" votes got a majority just shy of the 75 percent that they needed to force a move. Many shareholders voted "no" due to suspicions built up over years of financial failures.

If Chelsea owned the freehold to Stamford Bridge, what was to stop them from pulling out of the Battersea bid and moving the club to somewhere cheaper, outside of London? Wimbledon FC had set a precedent for this, and the fans were wary of suffering a similar fate.

In the end, the move to Battersea was quashed by a Malaysian consortium, and the board were back to square one.

Munich

In 2012, a Chelsea legend from the days before Abramovich brought home the trophy that he so desperately craved. In Munich, on May 19 2012, Chelsea won the Champions League. The run to the final had been similarly difficult to the journey to Moscow, with a managerial exit and a couple of visits to the last-chance saloon.

Things were different this time around, though.

Despite having around 25 percent possession over the two legs of the semifinal, Chelsea beat Barcelona 3-2 on aggregate.

They arrived in the Allianz Arena totally outnumbered, with the Bayern Munich fans occupying at least two thirds of the stadium. Unlike in Moscow, Didier Drogba remained calm, other than conceding an extra-time penalty that Arjen Robben failed to convert. When the time came for the final, crucial penalty of the shootout, Drogba was there.

In what turned out to be his final kick for Chelsea, he won the Champions League. Roman’s emotional and financial investments had been repaid. 

Roberto Di Matteo and Rafa Benitez

Managerial sackings were commonplace during Abramovich’s first decade, but none was more unsettling than the dismissal of Roberto Di Matteo in November 2012. It is true that after a great start to the 2012-13 campaign, the team’s performances had faltered, and the defeat to Juventus in Turin took Chelsea’s Champions League destiny out of their hands.

However, that is no excuse for the events that followed. Di Matteo had been a fan favourite at Stamford Bridge long before anyone had even heard of Abramovich, and to see him treated in such a way, just six short months after he had delivered the club’s ultimate glory, was a slap in the face.

The knockout blow came when it was announced that former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez would take charge in the interim. A man who had been out of work for two years, and had insulted Chelsea’s supporters during his time on Merseyside was to replace their beloved Di Matteo.

Chelsea fans responded with a vitriolic backlash that nobody had expected, and the latter half of the season was played under a cloud of grumbling resentment. Many fans felt that the price for success had increased to beyond what they were willing to pay, and when a large number of season ticket holders failed to renew, Abramovich became aware that he needed to do something special to appease the masses.

The Second Coming

Something special was exactly what the Chelsea fans got when, on June 4, 2013, it was announced that Jose Mourinho would be returning to Stamford Bridge. Having finished his “European tour” Mourinho appeared ready to settle down into a long and happy marriage.

Experience tells us that there is no guarantee of this coming to pass, but the signs are positive. If Abramovich truly wants his second decade at Chelsea to provide more stability than the first, there is no better time to begin than now.