Alisher Usmanov’s passion might be said to be for Arsène as much as Arsenal. The billionaire looked at buying into various Barclays Premier League clubs, including Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Manchester United - and he owns an executive box at Chelsea – but concluded that there was no better investment than banking on Arsène Wenger to bring success. “He is the best in the world,” Usmanov said. “I want to be part of the team while he [Wenger] has the possibility to create as an artist.”

The businessman in him might have added that it is on the back of Wenger’s brilliance that Arsenal announced a record turnover in excess of £200 million. Usmanov’s strong belief is that Arsenal will continue to be highly profitable, as well as entertaining, as long as Wenger is at the helm and, as he talked at length for the first time about his involvement, it was clear that there is no great mystery behind his willingness to pay more than £10,000 a share.

From his perspective, he gets to buy into a team “that will compete for silverware for the next few years playing stylish football” while seeing his investment grow. What is not to like, although he has also seen a downside to the public exposure that comes with buying into a sport as popular as Premier League football.

There has been a lot of rummaging around his past and various dark murmurings about his businesses, some of it from the Arsenal board, and his response this week was to fly a group of journalists from England to his metals company in Moscow by private jet to explain that, while he may be an imposing bear of a man, he is not threatening or ill-intentioned.

He did so sitting in his vast office at his metals company. There was a tank containing some exotic, tropical fish, but similarities with Peter Ridsdale, the former Leeds United chairman who added to his club’s debts by renting goldfish for the boardroom, probably end there.

Usmanov’s past includes six years in prison in his native Uzbekistan in the 1980s, but he said that he had been locked up on politically motivated and unfounded charges cooked up by his enemies in the KGB. That was life, he said, for many under the old Communist regime. “I spent 20 years fighting for my name,” Usmanov said. “Money is nothing compared to my name.”

He also dismissed allegations by Thomas Wise, an English MEP, that his money was tainted. “People talk about me as Uzbekistan businessman involved with shady dealings, with narcotics,” Usmanov said. “It is beneath my dignity to respond to all the allegations. People like my parents could not bring up a gangster and racketeer.”

His childhood was in Tashkent, where Usmanov supported his local team before moving to Russia and giving financial support to Dynamo Moscow. He said that he had always had a passion for sport and, clearly aware of his audience, claimed that England’s World Cup victory in 1966 was one of his happiest memories.

“I fell truly in love with the game in 1966, when the Great British national team won over the Germans,” he said. “I was in love with the Charlton brothers, Bobby Moore. I still have a picture in my house of Stanley Matthews when he was at Stoke City.”

His knowledge of recent Arsenal history was more sketchy – he erroneously listed Jens Lehmann and Gaël Clichy as members of Arsenal’s most recent Double-winning team – but then an encyclopaedic knowledge is no requirement for owning a football club and events at Stamford Bridge would suggest that it is probably best that the owner does not become too passionately involved. “It is not right to give your opinions to the coach,” Usmanov said.

Evidently he had been briefed about the criticism being thrown at Roman Abramovich, whom he described as “a friend of 18 years”. Like his pal, Usmanov has the billions of pounds, the yachts and the interest in football, but he was keen to make distinctions between himself and Abramovich. Refusing to be labelled an oligarch was one of them. “I never received anything from the Government,” he said. “Everything was bought.”

He also made it plain that, unlike Chelsea, Arsenal would have to pay their own way as a business rather than expect handouts. Usmanov may be a genuine fan of Arsenal – he even called Tony Adams “a real Gooner” – but he also referred to them as a “useful portfolio investment”. He is worth about £5 billion, but he is not about to start throwing it away.

With a vast, global business to run, he is unlikely to devote too much time to Arsenal unless a big tranche of shares becomes available. He will act quickly if someone is willing to sell and he did not rule out a takeover. Foreign ownership was not something to fear, he claimed, even though Wenger has given warning that the English game is losing its identity as clubs are snapped up by overseas investors.

Having invested £36 million in the art collection owned by the late, renowned cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich, and given it to a museum in St Petersburg, it appears he would like to see himself as a benefactor giving something back after years of making himself rich. At 54, he is probably starting to think how he will be remembered.

A desire for fame and glory is probably another reason he is seeking to become involved, although he will remain a remote fan for the foreseeable future. He has been to the Emirates Stadium only once and has no plans to visit, apart from the game with Manchester United on November 3.

Metal man

— Alisher Usmanov made his estimated £2.75 billion fortune through metals. He built up a string of steel and iron plants in the Ural mountains to become one of Russia’s biggest steelmakers

— The 54-year-old oligarch is from Uzbekistan but moved to Moscow in the 1970s to be educated. His main assets are in Metalloinvest, the mining and steel empire. In 2006, he acquired Kommersant, one of the few independent national papers in Russia, for $200 million (£98 million)

— In 2004, the controversial businessman built a 14 per cent stake in Corus, formerly British Steel. He later earned a profit of £130 million by selling most of his shares

— His wife, Irina Viner, is an Olympic rhythmic gymnastics coach. They met as teenagers in Tashkent and now have two children