As has been widely reported, Chelsea are trying to buy back shares of the Chelsea pitch from the Chelsea Pitch Owners, with a view to starting a process of moving the club away from Stamford Bridge.
The announcement by the club mentions the upcoming meeting of the CPO and asking that the CPO votes in favour of selling the shares to the club. The club is, however, not very forthcoming about the future: there are currently no concrete plans to move away, although Chelsea recognise that that is a likely option as the alternative of expanding the capacity of Stamford Bridge has been pretty much exhausted.
As fans, how should we feel about this? The football fan is an essentially reactionary animal, enjoying the repetition and the ritual of the football match. You enjoy going to see a game because you sit in the exact same seat, accompanied by the exact same pre- and post-match activities. A creature of tradition and habit, we (of course) like the idea that Chelsea play at Stamford Bridge, always have done and always will be. When you think about it, that`s a ridiculous standpoint. Football is changing on the pitch and off the pitch, it`s normal that the pitch should also change. It cannot be preserved in aspic just to satisfy the football fans` innate conservatism.
There are many reasons, all of them compelling, why we should accompany a change of stadium. The first reason is economic. Our club has changed out of all recognition since a fateful day just over 8 years ago when Roman Abramovich came into Chelsea. We have grown used to being a part of the footballing elite, taking part in the Champions League each season. The category of players that we watch every week at our stadium (wearing the Chelsea shirt rather than that of the opposition) are unthinkable from that we endured a decade ago. Our club has broken into the big time. But just as Chelsea are now (officially) a big club, the infrastructure of the club, particularly the stadium, is holding us back.
The revenue that Chelsea generates from ticket sales is insufficient. As Bruce Buck himself says, we have the 8th biggest Premier League stadium and the 60th biggest in Europe. On the stage at which we like to play, our stadium simply doesn`t cut it. For a club that has come to view being runner-up in the table as a failure, and is used to playing Champions League semi-finals, the 41,800 capacity stadium is not enough.
The example of our North London neighbours is edifying. Arsenal moved also from a traditional home to a state of the art stadium. At the time we scoffed about it being called The Emirates, but the truth is, objectively, that the Arsenal stadium is magnificent. Perhaps more significantly there is no club in the world that generates more cash from ticket sales. Arsenal might have featured below us pretty much in every competition and every season since 2004, but in the financial league they have overtaken Chelsea and all that on the basis of the new stadium project.
If you look at the 5 clubs richer than Chelsea (Madrid, Barça, Manchester United, Bayern, Arsenal) these are clubs that can depend on a larger capacity stadium than ours. Chelsea are a club in the most expensive city in Europe (and are tied to the most expensive part of the most expensive city in Europe). The revenue that we could generate from moving to a bigger stadium would come from somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 fans at each game. There would inevitably also be an increase in ticket prices, something that nobody wants, but our prices are currently less than not only Arsenal but also Spurs. That`s an indication that, if anything, Chelsea`s ticket prices are undervalued for the best club in London.
Chelsea fans expect that their club will be competing for every honour every season and scrapping it out with the elite. That means having the best players in Chelsea blue, but also the best facilities in order to attract the best players.
We have to accept that the preferred option, that of staying in an expanded Stamford Bridge, simply isn`t feasible. A new stadium is an alternative that we now have to accept. If we expect Chelsea to compete, we need it to be built on the basis of a stadium that can accommodate close to 60,000 fans. We all accept that Roman Abramovich`s continued generosity cannot last for ever, neither because we expect that of him, nor because it is allowed under UEFA rules. The club therefore needs to generate more cash, and the new stadium is one of the only ways to do this. Other sources are limited, such as TV revenue, and commercial revenue. If anything, improved commercial revenue is actually being held back by our stadium size.
A new stadium it will have to be. And let`s look at the bright side: the most recent examples of new stadia have been stunning: that`s not only Arsenal, but also Bayern, Porto, Manchester City. Look at Juventus, who took the brave option of moving to a smaller capacity (but more modern) stadium: the fans love it. We should, if anything, have faith in the current club management that having done so much and offered the very best to Chelsea (and the training ground facilities is a pretty good example), they will ensure that Chelsea have the absolute best in modern football stadia. There are good indications in the call to sell the shares to Chelsea that the club will do it well. To start with, they are committed to staying within a 3 mile radius of Stamford Bridge (the last thing anyone wants is to move to Milton Keynes) and giving preference to existing season ticket holders.
Whether individual CPO shareholders vote in favour is a matter for their conscience. The CPO was set up to stop speculators from wiping out Chelsea Football Club. Right now, the CPO shareholders are merely being asked to sell as a first step, but without any end view in sight.
In my view, there is no project. We would like to see a model of what will be Chelsea`s new home, including the location. Instinctively I trust the current club management to do the best for the club, and I accept that that ‘best` means that the club will have to move out of Stamford Bridge. But until I see where we would be moving to, I wouldn`t yet agree to handing over shares.
The club probably knows that it is going to have a very long process on its hands, and handling the CPO is one of the major steps that is likely to take a long time. The call to sell is just the first stage in this process. Good luck to them; although I would not hand over shares just yet, when I see a good proposal I hope that the CPO shareholders will see reason, and accompany what is a necessary step for our club`s development.
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