Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck has spoken of when club owner Roman Abramovich first chose to buy into the Premier League.

Buck was discussing the takeover in an interview for upcoming book There's a Golden Sky, extracts of which have been published in the Daily Telegraph.

Investment bank UBS Warburg was hired to write a feasibility study, which listed a number of possible options.

"It said that Manchester United would be expensive and the fans would go crazy. Aston Villa was for sale but was in Birmingham and the long-term opportunities were limited," he explained.

"Tottenham was on the list along with Chelsea. They were in London; they were in financial trouble. Roman's advisers tried to arrange meetings with Tottenham and Chelsea but for whatever reason, they couldn't set up a meeting with Tottenham, or Tottenham didn't want to meet."

Buck admits that Abramovich had not expected to be at the centre of so much media scrutiny when he first became involved in English football.

He said: "We thought, 'Yeah, it will be a decent story for a couple of weeks and then Roman will go back and have his private life.' Because he is a very private guy. He clearly didn't do things for the notoriety or publicity because that is not him."