Once upon a time they were the “Ricchi Scemi”, the rich fools. Businessmen with perhaps more money than sense drove Italian football to the top of the continental tree in a golden age of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Colourful, controversial and voluble they also had something else in common – they were Italian.

But with all three newly-promoted sides from Serie B this summer under foreign ownership, the game of Calcio has started to take on a distinctly Stateside drawl. But why has it happened and does it really matter for the state of the game and its fans?