Photo by Ben Radford/Getty Images

Features

HomeFeaturesChelseaEnglish Premier League

The £7.8m Chelsea player who changed English football forever despite only scoring seven Premier League goals for the Blues

Giuseppe Labellarte

Mon 5 May 2025 7:15, UK

Football as we know it is a multi-billion pound industry, with most of the top players commanding nine-figure fees when transferring from one club to another.

Indeed, a player moving for something like £20-30million these days would be seen as a bargain.

However, at the turn of the century, such fees were rare, and football, while still lucrative, was not the gargantuan behemoth it is today.

If one moment could be pinpointed as when English football changed forever, it was on 11 May 2003, during a Premier League game between Liverpool and Chelsea.

And the individual who proved the catalyst for this turning point was a Chelsea player who cost the club £7.8million had only scored seven league goals for the club.

READ MORE: Chelsea fans have theory on why Cole Palmer is struggling

How Chelsea cult hero Jesper Gronkjaer changed English football forever

On 11 May 2003, Chelsea hosted Liverpool in a game billed the “£20million match” in which the victor would earn a spot in the 2003/04 Champions League.

Sami Hyypia opened the scoring for Liverpool in the 11th minute, but Marcel Desailly equalised just three minutes later.

And then, in the 27th minute, Jesper Gronkjaer got the ball on the right flank, held off his marker, and curled a superb effort from just inside the box.

It proved the winning goal for Chelsea, which resulted in the plucky West London outfit qualifying for the Champions League for just the second time in their history.

Chelsea caught the eye of a Russian billionaire by the name of Roman Abramovich, who was looking to buy a Premier League club.

Manchester United and Tottenham were on his shortlist, but with Chelsea – then in financial turmoil – in the Champions League all of a sudden, Abramovich took an interest.

Abramovich went on to buy Chelsea and turned the then modest club into a global powerhouse, raising the bar when it came to how clubs were run.

Chelsea’s almost-overnight success under Abramovich then caught the eye of other would-be investors all over the world.

Back in 1992, the only foreign owner of a Premier League club was Sam Hamman at Wimbledon, a Lebanese millionaire.

Now, there are only three Premier League clubs that are entirely English-owned, with one more that is majority English-owned and two run by Englishmen with minority stakes.

In addition, over the years, plenty of measures have been introduced regarding the business side of football as more and more money flowed into the game.

These include Financial Fair Play, ownership tests and, in the Premier League, Profit and Sustainability Rules, all of which came about in a bid to regulate the business side of football.

Needless to say, English football – and indeed, football worldwide – has changed massively as a result of what followed in the aftermath of Gronkjaer’s goal.

Jesper Gronkjaer’s career

Born in Greenland in 1977 but raised in Denmark, Gronkjaer enjoyed a solid career at the highest levels of football.

He started his career with local team Thisted and moved on to Danish giants AaB in 1995, making 86 appearances for the club.

Gronkjaer then spent two years at Ajax before joining Chelsea in 2000, where he spent four years and scored arguably the most important goal in their history.

He made 119 appearances for Chelsea, scoring 11 goals – of which seven came in the English top flight – and registering 17 assists.

In 2004, Gronkjaer joined Birmingham City, but was soon on the move to Atletico Madrid, though he only clocked up 32 appearances between both clubs.

Gronkjaer then spent the 2005-06 season at Stuttgart before moving to FC Copenhagen, where he would play until 2011, when he hung up his boots.

Gronkjaer also won 80 caps for Denmark and was involved at Euro 2000, the 2002 World Cup, Euro 2004 and the 2010 World Cup.