Despite his lofty position in the world of business, Martin Broughton is said to prefer sitting in the Matthew Harding Stand than the executive boxes at Stamford Bridge.
Word of his allegiance to Chelsea has raised a few eyebrows among Liverpool supporters, but then Broughton – who may find himself working with Barclays Capital to find a buyer for the Reds – hasn’t been earmarked as the club’s new independent chairman on the basis of where he watches his football.
But the fact he chooses the cheap seats – if there's such a thing at Chelsea – to the corporate niceties on offer, is perhaps a nod to his unspectacular upbringing in tough circumstances.
He was born and raised in Fulham where his disabled father was a coach-trimmer, replacing the seats and trimmings on old cars.
Broughton was nearly 20 before the family acquired a television set.
At Westminster City Grammar School, he recalls how he 'was an average student. I was bottom of the A-stream. Just average, really.'
Minus the qualifications or financial means to go to university he went to work, aged 18, for a small firm of accountants in Piccadilly.
It was here he discovered his vocation coming 41st out of 3,000 candidates in national exams.
Although he would soon move to British American Tobacco, where his business career took off, this was the start of a long and winding road that has brought him to Anfield. His appreciation of football is secondary to the reason he has been approached by Liverpool to effectively help sell the club, however.
Indeed, his main sporting love is horse-racing.
Broughton has long been a keen racegoer and race-horse owner and was a guest of Lord Daresbury at last week's Grand National at Aintree.
While it could be seen as a professional gamble to have anything to do with the financial mess Liverpool currently finds itself in, Broughton is likely to relish the opportunity to smooth things over in a boardroom where discretion has been replaced by in-fighting and financial disagreements.
Renowned for his fabled diplomacy, the chairman of British Airways is used to turbulent times.
With the airline currently in the midst of a head on battle with cabin crew trade union Unite, Broughton's mediating skills will again be useful. But it is from one of his previous roles – and there have been many – as chairman of the British Horseracing Board that Liverpool supporters can turn for evidence of his credentials to get the club's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett reading from the same page.
His main task while chairing the BHB between 2004 and 2007 was to reconcile the factions in the industry.
With the owners, the courses and the bookmakers pulling in various directions, he had two major concerns; to sort out the funding of racing, and to modernise the structure of the sport itself.
Using his litigation experience to challenge the bookmakers, Broughton is credited with helping to save the sport from insolvency.
Next he risked the wrath of traditionalists by merging the governing body (BHB) and the Horseracing Regulatory Authority (HRA), seeing no need for two separate bodies.
In doing so, Broughton insisted that the new chairman and chief executive were not from either the BHB or the HRA.
He explained: “I felt all the way through that there were some very well-meaning people in racing but, when they came to the BHB, they came with a mandate.
“That's not a way, to me, to run a board. That's why I felt it should change.”