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Earn Kenney's avatar

Yeah, what if we're selling academy talent because they're simply not that good enough to play for Chelsea short- or long-term? It doesn't feel that complicated nor does this feel like financially-driven decisions. Of course it factors in, but clubs like Madrid don't get stick for their treatment of La Fabrica nor do City, and look at the quality of player the latter is developing that can't even wear the first team shirt.

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JWickum's avatar

Why couldn’t we build at Battersea Power Station? There’s a tube stop there, it’s on the Thames, it’s ready for more redevelopment isn’t it????

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Mitch Cumstein's avatar

The whole site has been developed. No space there.

We had our chance back a decade or so ago and the CPO voted to not allow Roman to explore options (it wasn't BPS he was actually after, but Earl's Court).

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JWickum's avatar

Thanks for the clarification! Cheers

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Craige Coren's avatar

Great article and thank you for the insight. I see no problem in our selling players from the Academy. Very few are capable of making it through to a Champions League team, that’s what we want to be. Have a look at the other elite clubs and how few players actually come through the Academy to be capable of being first team players. Even Foden at Manchester City struggles to get a place we week in week out. It’s the reality but hopefully every 2 to 3 years one comes through the ranks and makes the difference like JT did. Let’s remember in the Hay Day the majority of the English players we had came through other clubs academies and we bought them.

In respect of the stadium if it can be achieved, Earls Court makes perfect sense for many of the reasons given below. However, I suspect that we will joint venture the redevelopment of Stanford Bridge with a leading UK developer, especially with that expertise now sitting on the board. That way we will share in what will be a very profitable residential development in a prime central London location.

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Darren Smith's avatar

We must move to a new ground.

We need that 60k stadium, then we can maximise profit.

Bigger ground, a new demographic of fans as well.

Get the Lakers & Dodgers over to play show games, every year.

Sell the Bridge & all the associated land to the PIF.. That sale would offset the purchase of what we need at Earls Court, to build a shiny new stadium.

A no brainer to me.

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Andy Setterfield's avatar

Just imagine if Chelsea did decide to move I reckon Fulham would queue up to buy the ground financed by the development on their existing ground.

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Darren Smith's avatar

We've got to move Andy, otherwise, we will get left behind.

Earls Court is the dream, build it and then move in , when ready.

Spurs, Arsenal & West Ham have all moved to new grounds. Time waits for no man eh!

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Kris Petrov's avatar

Great article. Very insightful and well explained. Big thanks.

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Santhosh's avatar

Great read. Thanks @The Score. I am still hoping we explore more in terms of commercial revenue. I kind of expected much more aggressive commercial deals considering our owners have expressed this openly and also their prior engagements but haven’t seen anything ground breaking. Paramount deal left a bad taste and disastrous PR for these owners.

Air Jordan seems to be the new rumored association. Only time will tell.

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Umair's avatar

another way to stay profitable is stop overpaying for players and buying average players. Not all academy players need to be sold to buy for players who dont move the needle. Also dont pay premium prices for kids only to stockpile talent that may or may not be part of the team or be sold at profit.

A few biggest examples are that overpaying on Mudryk, Caicedo and Lavia plus signing average players like Sanchez & Disasi. Smart recruitment teams don't do these type of deals.

A point on the stadium. I doubt they can do much other then touch ups / renovations to what we have now. Projected costs are approx 2bn and it will at max add how many seats? 10K, 15K or max 20K. Thats a huge expenditure with the rising interest rates. It will take us ages to break even on this. Even if we somehow end up generating 50m more after the rebuilt... it will take 40 years just to breakeven on the cost. Its just not a viable business decision unless you are owned by a wealthy nation. There is alot more money to be made by success on the pitch, commercial deals and broadcast. If it would have been cheaper to rebuild the stadium then yeah it would be nice to do that.

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Mitch Cumstein's avatar

At Stamford Bridge you are correct. At Earl's Court it is a totally different scenario.

For a start you can build a purpose built stadium at 65,000. Given the uplift in Spurs' revenue since moving to their new stadium we would expect that to increase from £82m to at least £130m - but the kicker is twofold.

Firstly a new stadium at EC would be seen by the millions of people driving into London from Heathrow. That is incredible valuable from a marketing / branding point of view. I think this would add an additional £20m / year, maybe more.

The main thing we could do on that site - which we can't do at The Bridge - would be to add a separate arena / exhibition centre. The O2 does over £100m / year in EBITDA.

So for Earl's Court you're looking at an increase of over £170m / year as opposed to a max of £50m at Stamford Bridge.

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Umair's avatar

oh yeah definitely if that is an option then its perfect. Im assuming that EC has no interest in a stadium being built there.

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Mitch Cumstein's avatar

ECDC are not going to build a stadium. We would have to buy the site and put in a planning application (there is currently no planning application whatsoever for the site).

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Mitch Cumstein's avatar

This is very true, and it highlights again how important multipe revenue sources, and maximising matchday / commercial revenue are.

It would be such a boost on all those fronts if we are able to move to Earl's Court. I think it could be worth at least an additional £100m / year in revenue if we build a 65k stadium and a separate arena / conference venue.

If we do end up staying at The Bridge it will always be a compromise simply because the site is so small and hemmed in.

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Darren Smith's avatar

Totally agree with you Mitch.

It has to be Earls Court, with all that you mentioned.

The sale of our site, would offset that considerably as well.

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