Thirty years ago, most chairmen in English football looked like the manager of the local supermarket. Nowadays, with the globalisation of English football they resemble the kind of sinister, eccentric, super-wealthy moguls that James Bond has grappled with down the decades.
Not all modern chairman look like Bond villains, the few remaining British ones for example. Stoke City's chairman Peter Coates looks like the doddery, aging head of MI6.
Nor do the Americans. Randy Lerner, for instance, has the kind of name that Ian Fleming might have given to Bond's hapless American colleague, a drawling, guileless bumpkin who was ostensibly trying to fell the same foe as Bond but is invariably barking up the wrong tree.
And not all continental or non-Western chairmen look like Bond villains. Roland Duchatelet of Charlton for instance, looks like a Belgian film-director or a vegetarian academic. However, what emerges here is that the two key ingredients that make a Bond villain are being rich and non-English speaking.
1. Nicola Cortese, Southampton
A formidable foe. Looks like the kind of genius that Bond would have played poker against. He wipes the floor with all-comers and is deferred to by all around him until Bond arrives at the table. The poker game ends inevitably with his straight flush being beaten by Bond's royal flush.
2. Vincent Tan, Cardiff City
Not the lead Bond villain, more the eccentric associate or business partner of the lead Bond villain. Tan is the kind of comical villain who is killed in an absurdly convoluted and/or gruesome fashion halfway through the movie.
3. Roman Abramovich, Chelsea
An admired foe, Abramovich is a cerebral and respected enemy. For his part, he admires Bond's qualities and enjoys shooting the breeze with him in salubrious surroundings.
The pair engage in a long, thoughtful, at times witty, discussion in one of Abramovich's spectacularly exotic and luxurious properties at the start of the film (more than likely his yacht). It is in this location, later in the film, where Bond kills him, as chaos reigns all around them.
4. Gino Pozzo, Watford
A silent, Oddjob like figure (minus the physique and the hat) Bond and him rarely exchange a word, but just a series of tense looks.
5. Shahid Khan, Fulham
