The club took another small step on their journey to global domination yesterday by announcing a strategic alliance with AEG, the American sports and entertainment group that owns four Major League Soccer (MLS) franchises — LA Galaxy, Chicago Fire, DC United and Houston Dynamo. The Arctic Monkeys may be struggling, but Chelsea are confident they can crack America.

As chief executive of Manchester United, Kenyon was behind that club’s much-hyped alliance with the New York Yankees baseball club five years ago that reaped few dividends beyond the original headlines, but he insists that Chelsea’s impact in the United States will be more far-reaching. With little initial commercial value, the partnership will focus on marketing Chelsea in the US for the next ten years.

Chelsea have made huge efforts to increase awareness of their brand in the US since Kenyon joined two years ago, undertaking pre-season tours for each of the past two summers and planning another for this year. The club have developed close links with MLS, which they hope will help them to sign Freddy Adu, DC United’s teenage sensation, while the start of an eight-year, £100 m illion kit sponsorship deal with adidas this summer should bring them even closer to the American league.

For all these efforts, Chelsea still lag significantly behind other clubs in terms of their American fan base, with market research last year showing them to have about 200,000 supporters in the US compared with United’s four million.

As part of the alliance, AEG, which owns the Millennium Dome and several American stadiums, will stage a four-team pre-season tournament every two years, starting next summer, involving Chelsea and a host MLS club. Chelsea are expected to make £2 million from gate receipts and appearance fees from every competition, as well as being permitted to use first-class training facilities free of charge.

There will also be a special club-to-club relationship with LA Galaxy, the MLS champions, giving José Mourinho the first option on signing Galaxy players in the unlikely event that he needs to supplement his squad in such a manner and allowing young Chelsea players out on loan to gain experience overseas. The clubs will also exchange coaching and medical knowledge and personnel.

“Chelsea is absolutely delighted to be partnering with AEG, the leading backer of soccer in the US,” Kenyon, announcing the deal at the World Sports Congress in New York yesterday, said. “This is a unique, ground-breaking relationship that not only demonstrates our commitment to the development of US soccer but will also help Chelsea work towards its aim of becoming the most popular European club in the US, one of our key target markets.”

“Chelsea’s involvement in US football will be from top to bottom,” Paul Smith, their business affairs director, said. “We will not just fly in and fly out for the tournaments. We will seek to develop a programme of activity that will also cover the huge interest in soccer at youth level, as well as the professional game.”

Chelsea have not neglected other emerging football markets and are planning an end-of-season tour to China next year. If nothing else, their players will get to see the world.