In the most unlikely piece of footballing business news yet, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has been involved in a mix-up in which he travelled to an auction in Germany under the illusion he was about to buy the Blues' North London rivals, Arsenal.
Abramovich spilled this bizarre nugget of information during a conversation he was having at the auction to sell the trinkets of former East German leader Erich Honecker in the German city of Erfurt.
The Russian confessed:
"I am interested in buying gunners."
Available at the auction were some weapons once owned by Mr Honecker, including a Walther pistol that was allegedly used by Erich Mielke - a notorious Stasi police chief - to cold-bloodedly murder two policemen in 1931.
Abramovich had thought the auction programme notes on the Walther referred to Theo Walcott.
Honecker was a fanatical leader who ruled the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1971 to 1989. He was also a fanatical hunter who enjoyed entertaining communist leaders by taking them on long hunting trips with big guns.
Once the error had been explained to Mr Abramovich - also a fanatical leader - he looked somewhat dazed, but bought the guns anyway, before having them packed up and sent to his home in Russia.
