Steelers president Art Rooney II isn't looking for an investor to help with his football team's expenses, but the owner of the Chelsea soccer team that will play AS Roma at Heinz Field on July 29 certainly has the means to help.

Russian oil baron Roman Abramovich is listed by Forbes magazine as the world's 49th wealthiest person with a fortune of $10.6 billion. Born near the Arctic circle and orphaned at the age of four, he paid a reported $400 million for the United Kingdom's Chelsea team, one of the better in the world.

Promoters believe Chelsea will help attract soccer fans from as far as London and as near as the North Side.

"There are people in London who would kill to see them," said Chase Edmonson, the local representative for the game's promotor Champions World. "They can't get in (to games in Europe). I wouldn't be surprised if people would come here just to see them play."

AS Roma of Italy, another top international team, is led by one of the more popular soccer stars in the world, 27-year-old Italian Francesco Totti. Jimmy Sacco, director of stadium management at Heinz Field, said Totti is "a combination of Brad Pitt and Michael Jackson." Included on Totti's Web site is a link to information about his love life;

Sacco said international soccer fans like to follow Totti and other stars.

"People actually do travel," he said.

Champions World hopes to tap into that fanaticism, and Chelsea and Roma are two of seven international soccer teams that will play nine games at seven U.S. sites from July 24-Aug. 3. The game at Heinz Field will be the first of its kind in western Pennsylvania, Sacco said.

It also will be the first sporting event other than U.S. football at Heinz Field, and Sacco is hoping for a sellout at 64,350-seat Heinz Field.

"If we do (sell out), we hit a home run," he said. "If we do 40,000, we hit a triple."

The game was awarded to Pittsburgh in bidding among more than 100 other U.S. cities. NFL stadiums in East Rutherford, N.J., Philadelphia, Seattle and Chicago, plus the Skydome in Toronto and Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Conn., will serve as the other venues.

Sacco and his staff lobbied for three years to land the game.

"We have a great sports town, great sports history," he said. "Soccer is played by more people than any other sport (55,000 in the western Pennsylvania area, he said), and we have a strong ethnic community.

"We have a state-of-the-art facility, and our goal is to utilize it as much as possible."

Tickets (from $37-$87) go on sale March 30 at all Ticketmaster locations and on Ticketmaster.com. For more information, 1-800-380-3208.

Jerry DiPaola can be reached at trsp20@aol.com or 412-481-5432.