Chelsea has attracted the rich and the famous since the swinging sixties when the club was forever associated with the pop-star lifestyle but it has won the English championship only once, in 1955.

The biggest takeover in British footballing history came out of the blue.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has agreed to buy out the club for 60 million pounds and cover debts estimated at around 80 million pounds in a deal worth 140 million pounds (233 million dollars).

The takeover was finalised late Tuesday after talks with long-time chairman Ken Bates who bought the club in 1982 for just one pound, while taking on debts of 1.5 million pounds.

Bates, 71, stands to walk away with 18 million pounds from the sale.

Chelsea's ground is in one of the most fashionable and lucrative parts of London near the King's Road. Bates' dream was to build a complex, the Chelsea Village, of hotels and restaurants that would generate enough income to support the club.

He achieved that but amid huge controversy over the debts of the company. Negotiations have been ongoing to sell the club to a variety of interested parties in an effort to clear the club's debts.

The 36-year-old Abramovich has amassed a fortune of 5.7 billion dollars from oil and aluminum and is a friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Abramovich also owns stakes in Russian airline Aeroflot and a Russian television company.

Bates, a self-made millionaire from ready-mix concrete, has had a colourful 20 years at Chelsea which he transformed from a club on the brink of bankruptcy into a large public company at the centre of a major corporate venture.

"I think this is a great move for the club and the right time for me to sell up," he told the London Evening Standard.

"I had to be convinced that we had a football person coming in. Otherwise I would not have been interested. In the long term this will be great for Chelsea.

"What does this deal mean to Chelsea? Well, we are recognised as one of England's elite clubs and this extra financial power will help to make us one of Europe's elite clubs.

"The immediate benefit is that we will have a fund to purchase players. This is a great day for the club and its fans. We have achieved an enormous amount over the last 21 years."

Bates said the reason the deal had to be executed so quickly was that the Chelsea Village company, which owns the club, had to meet a strict repayments schedule on 23 million pounds this summer and because of the current state of the football economy. But it emerged Wednesday that City regulators were poised to examine the deal because of the rise in share prices ahead of the announcement.

Shares had been close to an all time low at 19.5 pence in early June but they have suddenly soared in the past month. They closed at 28 pence on Wednesday, a rise of almost 50 per cent.

And shares in Chelsea Village soared over 40 percent in early trading Wednesday.

Chelsea Village has a current stock market value of around 73 million pounds.

Abramovich, who has a law degree from Moscow State Law Academy, is one of the major shareholders of Sibneft, the fifth largest Russian oil producer.

In May, Sibneft announced a merger with Yukos Oil, Russia's second largest oil producer, to create Russia's largest, and the world's fourth largest, oil producer.

Abramovich will be one of the largest shareholders in the combined entity.

Chelsea fan and former sports minister Tony Banks called for an inquiry into the deal.

"I want to know if this individual is a fit and proper person to be taking over a club like Chelsea and until that question is answered, I'm afraid the jury is out," he said.

"We know that Chelsea is in financial difficulties and that a deal has been arranged with an individual we know nothing about, with a background we know nothing about, from a country that has a reputation that is not savoury in terms of its financial situation."