Chelsea – an unloved rich mans play-thing ?
Chelsea Football Club are an enigma. Successful – but almost completely unsupported.
Financially they were in ruins until along come Russian “business man” ( read mafia goon ) Roman Abramivich who bought the club – lock, stock and debts – and has subsequently pumped over £700m into it.
Now Chelsea have won two English Premier League titles in a row – while leaking money everywhere – and brought in some genuinely world class players – but still they cannot sell their seats for people to watch.
Chelsea appeared to sell less than half their ticket allocation for this season’s Community Shield game against Liverpool and now they’re struggling to sell out little Stamford Bridge for their opening league game of the season.
IF any other club in England had bought Andrei Schevchenko (and Michael Ballack) then it would have been a FULL HOUSE months ago. And remember that this is a game that opens their title defence, and has always been a sellout at Anfield, Old Trafford or Highbury (and probably even Emirates 60,000 seater too).
But despite Chelsea’s media spin doctors saying that they had record number of memberships we now see that tickets for Chelsea’s home game against Man City have now gone on general sale!! General sale?!!
Sure, shirts will sell in Asia and the US, we know the bandwagon “success culture” that drives those two continents – but it appears that Londoners are voting with their feet.
Once the Russians go – and the money departs – Chelsea will be left as a debt ridden shell – completely unable to trade their way out of this financial hole.
Chelsea – a big club? You’re ‘aving a laff. 🙂
Add comment August 16th, 2006