It is a scene that stirs the imagination. A few months ago, Lakshmi Mittal invited to dinner at his palatial home – a neo-Palladian mansion in Kensington – the full playing squad of Queen’s Park Rangers football club, of which Mittal became a part-owner last year. “We had 50 or 60 people at home – the team members and their wives or guests,” Mittal tells me. “They were very happy that they are respected, they are encouraged. I told them, ‘We are not going to just spend millions and millions to buy top-notch players. We are going to be very selective and encourage teamwork.’”

Details of Mittal’s effort to boost morale at QPR – a far from glamorous club that is in the UK’s second-tier league – emerge from a relaxed lunch with the Indian metals magnate in London. This is an event I had been trying to arrange since 2005. Although I have interviewed the billionaire main owner of ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel company, on numerous occasions, this is only the second time I have shared a meal with the man, who guards his privacy and is famously reluctant to open up to journalists.