In what other sport can you stumble across a club that is spending money like a sailor on shore leave, and is owned by a billionaire … and you’ve never heard of the club? Or the billionaire?

Soccer is the only sport that can send you into paroxysms of the “five W’s” — Who? What? When? Where? They spent how much?

Happened to me today. With FC Anzhi Makhachkala and owner Suleiman Kerimov.

No. Really. That’s an actual club and a real billionaire. And Roberto Carlos plays for them.

I prefer to forgive myself for not knowing about Anzhi Makhachkala … and I forgive you, too. Unless you have been following Russian club soccer, post-Soviet-breakup edition — and I can’t say I know anyone who does.

It’s not so strange that a city named Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan, has a team. Every city in Europe has a club. Even those in a “federal republic” of Russia located in the Caucasus Mountains. OK, sure, I’d never heard of that city, but I will make allowances that I haven’t heard of 100 world cities with populations of 400,000 and up.

I suppose it’s not even a shock that I don’t know all 16 clubs in the Russian Premier League.

Spartak Moscow, Dinamo Moscow, Lokomotiv Moscow, Zenit St. Petersburg, even Rubin Kazan … I’ve heard of those.

But the rest of the league? In the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of the top clubs from the Ukraine and Belarus, Russia has generated some strange new “elite” clubs. Amkar Perm? Krylia Sovetov Samara? Krasnodar? Tom Tomsk?

Yes. Tom Tomsk. He thinks “Thomas” is too stuffy.

And, of course, Anzhi Makhachkala.

The team’s stadium seats only 20,000, which gives it a home field smaller than that of the Los Angeles Galaxy … and not much bigger than the stadiums of several of the mid-level clubs here in the UAE.

So how can a club like that have Roberto Carlos (even the old, slow version of Roberto Carlos) on its roster? As well as three other Brazilians, including another occasional Brazil national, Jucilei? And a roster with players from 10 nations on it? Including one from Uzbekistan, the midfielder Odil Ahmedov, who I twice saw play in the Asian Cup in Qatar in January? (Odil and I go way back.)

How is this possible? Because the guy who owns the club is No. 136 on the Forbes List of Billionaires, Mr Kerimov being worth an estimated $5.5 billion.

It remains unnoticed in many parts of the West (in Europe and in North America), but some random places on the globe are generating some big-spending clubs these past 10-15 years, and some of them are here in the Mideast. A lot of the wealth comes from commodities (oil especially), but some of it is just wheeling and dealing, as seems to be the case with our Mr. Kerimov.

And when guys on the Old World side of the Atlantic amass lots of wealth, many of them want to buy a soccer team — and try to make waves on the world football stage.

Anzhi came to our attention today because we have a general soccer roundup in The National, and one of the items in it was our favorite Dagestan side signing a Moroccan midfielder named Moubarek Boussoufa, prying him loose from the Belgian team Anderlecht (now, them I’ve heard of) for a reported $16.6 million. And that’s just the transfer fee.

Which would be a lot of money for a Major League Soccer team … more money than they would want to spend for the rights to anybody, actually. But for soccer’s nouveau riche — and we should include the newly discovered Anzhi Makhachkala in there — it’s just another day at the office.

I can hardly wait for my next discovery. Maybe some club in Nepal. Or Namibia … I’ll stumble across them when they sign some washed up Brazilian to some enormous contract.

(And not a word from any of you on Al Ahli and Fabio Cannavaro. Too close to home.)