Chelsea’s woes. Since the arrival of the new management played by Todd Boehly, the Blues have been going through complicated times. This season, the results still do not live up to the expectations and ambitions of the new owners, whose plan was to compete with Liverpool and Manchester City. Today, Londoners are very far from it. Indeed, almost 30 points separate the Reds (1st, 63 points) and the Skyblues (2nd, 62 points) from Chelsea, eleventh with 36 points. All without playing in the European Cup.
Chelsea are frustrated
In addition to these sporting concerns, the English club, which must manage the Mauricio Pochettino file, has another major problem to resolve. This one is about Stamford Bridge. The management, very frustrated, is studying various options to renovate its stadium or build a new one. But in both cases, it turns out to be complicated. However, this has become a necessity since the enclosure is aging and dilapidated and cannot accommodate more than 40,000 people. Which is not good news for the club’s coffers. The Sun explains that Arsenal and Tottenham, who have newer stadiums, make more money.
The English media specifies that the Gunners pocket a little over 1 million euros more per match. The Spurs earn 1.2 million euros more per match. All this is necessarily running through the heads of Chelsea bosses, who no longer want to lose ground vis-à-vis their competitors. Their original plan was to restore Stamford Bridge. During the work, they would have rented another compound in the capital. The Sun raised the possibility of joining Craven Cottage, Fulham’s nearest stadium. But its capacity (29,000 seats) is even smaller than that of Stamford Bridge.
6 years away from Stamford Bridge?
The other option for Londoners is to take up residence at Wembley as did Tottenham, which could accommodate 62,000 people after agreement with the Premier League. But again, Boehly and his teams are not convinced. The stadium is, according to them, located too far from Stamford Bridge (16 km). They also feel that it is underserved. Finally, it will be expensive.
The Blues could also decide to build a new stadium elsewhere. But here again, there are obstacles. In fact, they will have to pay a lot of money to buy land in the English capital, where prices are soaring. On several occasions, the British press has mentioned the purchase of land located on the site of the former Earls Court exhibition center, approximately 1.6 km from its current stadium.
But in addition to the price of the land, which is £500m (€585m), Chelsea are expected to spend more than £1bn (€1.17bn) to carry out the work. A sum considered too large, even if the new management has already spent a fortune to recruit. The other option is to demolish their current stadium and expand it, as they recently acquired land adjacent to Stamford Bridge for £80m (€93.6m). But additional expenses will have to be taken into account since the duration of the work for the new stadium is estimated at 6 years. It would therefore be necessary to rent another enclosure. A new multi-billion euro headache for the Blues.
