Chelsea Football Club, England's present premier league champions, is to team up with some of Bollywood's most famous stars in an upcoming movie.

The stars include Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Lara Dutta and Preity Zinta. They are all featuring in the Yash Raj Film epic called "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" that is partly being shot in London.

It is heard that Abhishek Bachchan is a Chelsea fan in real life and, since he is to play a character in the flick called Rikki who is a supporter of the club, there should be no great feats of acting required.

As Abhishek said: "The character I play in the film is a very loyal Chelsea fan. I have now had the chance to see Chelsea live after following them over the last few years and the club have given me a jersey with my character's name Ricky on it, so that was fun. A friend of mine introduced me to Chelsea; I enjoy their football and the way they play".

Aishwarya Rai, Preity Zinta and Lara Dutta have all recently visited Chelsea's ground, Stamford Bridge, and saw games against Charlton and Liverpool. Whether they enjoyed, or even understood, what was going on is not reported.

Chelsea was approached by the producer of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Yash Raj, earlier this year about taking part in the production and its officials were immediately enthused by the idea.

As Paul Smith, Chelsea's Business Affairs Director, explained: "Naturally we are delighted to be involved in a Bollywood movie and, we take it as a big compliment to be approached with this storyline and to be associated with this calibre of actors and actresses."

"Bollywood is not just one of the most successful movie genres in the world, it is also one of the most successful art forms as it has a unique character and popularity. From a Chelsea perspective, we have been looking at ways to reach out to the British Asian community and play a leading role by involving them more in football.

We already host the Asian Cup Final and have done so for several years and we are now sponsoring a major Asian community award in London. But we are also looking to Asia, particularly India, as part of the strategy of extending the Chelsea brand into new markets," he added.

And doing that, of course, means more income to add to the many millions already poured into the club by Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who has helped Chelsea to successive premier league championships.