The Cold War parallels are too easy to ignore. After the acquisition of Liverpool yesterday, American businessmen own three British clubs: Malcolm Glazer at Manchester United, Randy Lerner at Aston Villa and George Gillett and Tom Hicks at Anfield. Their former Soviet counterparts also control three clubs: Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, Vladimir Romanov at Heart of Midlothian and Alexandre Gaydamak (whose father, Arcadi, was born in the Ukraine) at Portsmouth.

It is striking to note how distinct are the origins and approaches of the new owners. The American group are all well-versed in traditional corporate mores and, more important, each knows how to make money out of sport. Glazer and Lerner own franchises in the National Football League (NFL), while Gillett is a former minority owner.

The NFL experience is bound to inform their approach. Far and away the most lucrative organisation in team sport, the NFL’s success is based on certain key principles such as revenue sharing, centralised control and, wherever possible, the promotion of parity through tools such as the draft and the salary cap. Most of all, the general ethos is about promoting the NFL brand rather than any individual club.

Contrast this with the Americans’ Eastern-bloc counterparts. All three are self-made millionaires with humble beginnings. Arcadi Gaydamak worked as a gardener and bricklayer, Romanov sold bootleg LPs out of the back of a taxi and Abramovich, who was orphaned at 4, started out selling plastic ducks from a tiny Moscow flat. They witnessed the harshest excesses of communism and built their fortunes in the unfettered capitalist environment that followed.

Striking it rich after such tumultuous beginnings requires a strong personality and it is no coincidence that the three Eastern-bloc owners are rarely out of the headlines. The Americans, on the other hand, at least in the sporting sphere, have based their success on co-operation, following the NFL model. And they tend to keep a low profile. Success to them is not measured in popularity; the yardstick is revenues.

It will be interesting to see the extent to which their respective backgrounds will influence the behaviour of their clubs and how it will affect the leagues themselves.