Last night, at the blingiest of pitchside events held at the west London club’s Stamford Bridge ground, the Premier League side and the developer announced to a crowd of hundreds of specially invited high-net-worth individuals and property agents the details of the world’s first football-themed, branded residence — on the waterfront of Dubai’s Maritime City.

Damac’s Chelsea Branded Residences will be made up of six 130m-high towers containing 1,400 sea-facing homes, priced from £470,000. They will have 270-degree views of the Arabian Gulf and the Dubai skyline, and are due to be finished by 2029. And yes, there is blue sand and the buildings will light up blue whenever Chelsea score.

The stratospheric levels of bling involved in the scheme — and the kind of crowd it is targeted at — was immediately obvious by the tone of the star speaker, senior vice-president of development at Damac, Dr Mohammad Baydoun. The self-styled “doctor of real estate” strutted onto the stage, which was on the concourse behind the pitch, like a celebrity.

Sporting a skin-tight T-shirt to show off his rippling biceps, he declared, to whoops from the crowd: “Tonight, two legends, the legend of real estate and the legend of football are joining forces together to present a project that’s one of its kind!”

The project, he explained, was built around wellness as well as fitness, because “having six-packs doesn’t mean that you’re going to be healthy. In this project, we’re going to give you the six-packs and you’re going to be healthy at the same time.”

There will be an infinity beach pool, which “will come with a very special sand, actually. It’s a blue sand! Because we want you to live the full spectrum of blue hues and to fully explore the DNA of Chelsea in each and every detail of the project.”

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Plus, “to make things even more exotic, we introduced artificial corals at the bottom of the artificial beach. So imagine jumping into the water and — bang! — the wonders of the Arabian Gulf are in front of your eyes.”

Of course, it’s all about being seen, especially on social media. “On top of the corals, we’re going to have a very special swing, directed towards Burj Khalifa and the skyline of Dubai. That will be the Instagrammable moment that each and every resident is going to post on social media to brag about being part of Chelsea Residences community,” he said.

There will be Chelsea logos everywhere, including at the front entrance, where there will be an enormous (and somewhat overbearing) Chelsea lion statue. There will be a huge Chelsea-branded skylight in the gym, for example, where, Baydoun announced, they will be “filling weights with water, not with iron” to ensure muscles are properly toned, and where AI tools will scan visitors’ physiques every day.

There’s a fine-dining restaurant, where “you never know, at any moment in time, one of the champs or legends of Chelsea might be walking into that restaurant and sitting with you on the same table”.

There’s a football simulator downstairs and on the roof of one of the buildings a full-sized, Chelsea-logo-clad football pitch. And then, there is the blue light when Chelsea score. “Imagine Chelsea playing and they score a goal. The whole building of Chelsea Residences will be lit in blue to make sure that the whole city of Dubai knows that Chelsea is winning and winning big! Who is a Chelsea fan here? Cheers for Chelsea!” he shouts.

Of course, this has far less to do with fandom and far more to do with money — namely, Chelsea’s need for it and Damac’s appetite for growing its brand, as well as near-limitless funds and experience in building branded residences.

From Chelsea’s point of view, under its new ownership of Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, the club needs to create a secure future revenue stream, having been left in a perilous financial position in 2022 following years of ownership by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. It also needs to find ways to generate secure new future revenue streams to stay within the Premier League’s strict financial fair play rules.

On the other hand Damac, founded by Hussain Sajwani, specialises in creating branded residences, which are hugely lucrative and sell for a premium of 42 per cent more than non-branded ones, according to Morgan’s International Realty. Damac’s branded developments include the Trump International Golf Club in 2018 [Sajwani is known to be a friend of the US president], the Versace Home development in Nine Elms, London, and the Cavalli Couture tower in Dubai.

The value of the agreement between Damac and Chelsea has not been made public, nor how the proceeds from sales will be distributed, but it is described as a “long-term global partnership”, and the residences themselves will be worth in excess of £1 billion. To mark the deal, Damac was announced as Chelsea’s shirt sponsor at the end of last month, although the club says this arrangement is initially only until the end of the season.

The money looks lucrative for both parties. The Dubai real-estate market is one of the fastest-growing in the world, with property prices going up an eyewatering 147 per cent over the past five years, according to Knight Frank.

Apartments at the Chelsea Residences will start from £470,000, with one, two and three-bedroom properties available. The most expensive are £1,012,206. Payments can be made in 1 per cent instalments every month.

So who will buy them? British tax exiles from Labour are one group Chelsea are hoping to attract — there has been an exodus of 11,300 millionaires from the UK in the past year, owing to non-dom rule changes, and the ultra-low-tax Dubai has proved a popular destination.

However, at last night’s event, a notable majority of the hundreds-strong attendees at the event were from southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent — and the football knowledge of some seemed a little sketchy.

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As we walked around the pitch — where nibbles were handed out, foosball tables were set up, football stunt performers juggled balls and a brass band struck up the Chelsea theme tune for the umpteenth time — Chelsea club officials standing at the perimeter tried to explain goodnaturedly to one group of foreign clients the basics of the club’s history.

“I’ve just explained to her what the Champions League trophy is!” one official flag-waver said, laughing.

Meanwhile Lee Parker, the Chelsea stadium announcer, offered attendees the chance to win club merchandise by answering questions about the team’s history, and then — to the bafflement of the contestants — tested them on their knowledge of the history of Damac.

Football, eh? It isn’t what it used to be.

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