IN THE MONEY: Chelsea plan to build a £2BILLION expansion of Stamford Bridge
Chelsea are set to commit to a £2bn expansion of Stamford Bridge rather than relocating to a new stadium in Earl’s Court, which has now been ruled out.
A decision on the club’s stadium plans is expected to be confirmed by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital over the summer, once costs and time frames are established.
The Chelsea Supporters Trust held a meeting last week, where it was revealed that Earl’s Court was not considered an option, because the site’s owners are not planning to build a football stadium on its land.
Chelsea’s project team is being headed up by director Hugh Rosen, who was also in charge when former owner Roman Abramovich drew up his plans for a new stadium.
Meanwhile, Chelsea expect to lose more than £30m to settle disputes with commercial partners. The extraordinary amount was put aside by the club last season as it continues to wrangle with legal issues.
The club are due to pay out £29.8m to settle disputes with a number of partners — and a further £1,640,000 to settle with an unnamed former director.
Partners including £40m-a-year shirt sponsor Three, and former sleeve sponsor Hyundai, suspended their deals with the Blues last season after Abramovich was hit with sanctions relating to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Demand for Arsenal tickets at The Emirates has sky-rocketed to unprecedented levels as they chase a first Premier League title in 19 years, with a knock-on effect of surging black market activity and bot farm attempts to get hold of seats available online.
The club have cancelled almost 2,000 memberships this season alone after members were found to have bought tickets then touted them. Various secondary market websites — some of which are scams — were advertising seats for up to £1,000 each for Arsenal’s home game on Friday against Southampton. Reselling of football tickets is against the law in England under historic legislation introduced to try to keep fans from opposing clubs being in the same sections of a stadium.
Arsenal have also recently blocked 500,000 IP addresses linked to suspected bot activity during ticket sales. In other words, touts were making countless online requests for seats using bot farms, and this was one way to stop them.
Brentford’s accounts for 2021-22, their first top-flight season since 1946-47, carry remarkable detail that the club revoked 206 season tickets last season for touting and ticketing offences.
Wolves have revoked 93 holders and Liverpool have banned 66 members or season ticket holders for touting this season, and deactivated more than 2,100 accounts that did not authenticate their identification.
In January, Brighton ‘cancelled’ 150 tickets for their home FA Cup match against Liverpool after those tickets had been sold mostly to away fans via unofficial online sellers, for up to £250 each.
Olympic champion Mo Farah has landed a deal worth around £200,000 to run the final marathon of his superb career in London today.
It is understood the deal is made up of appearance fees and sponsorship triggers, with the fees not linked to the British hero completing the race.
Farah, 40, has a string of lucrative sponsorship deals with the likes of Nike, Oral-B and Huawei.
London Marathon organisers do not disclose the fees paid to athletes but hefty appearance money is commonplace in the ‘big city’ marathons. Farah’s agent Ricky Simms would not confirm the value of any deal.
A sponsorship source said: ‘Mo’s fee is pretty hefty, maybe not as much as he earned in his prime, but certainly befitting his status and his box office appeal on what will be an emotional occasion.’
Race organisers boosted the finances of the race last year after landing TCS as the headline sponsor. We can reveal the deal is worth £10m a year — a record for the London event. The deal replaced a previous arrangement with Virgin worth £8m a year. New Balance’s deal with the marathon is worth a further £4m. Race funds are set to be boosted further in 2024 when the entrance fee will be raised by 40 per cent from £49.99 to £69.99.
A spokesperson said: ‘The entry fee for the London Marathon was last increased in 2019. The new entry fee of £69.99 is still very significantly lower than the domestic entry fee for all the other major international marathons.
‘For example, the domestic entry fee for Boston is US$225, Chicago is US$230 and New York is US$295.
‘We always work to keep our entry fees as low as we can to make our events as accessible to as many people as possible.’
Aston Villa hope to complete two phases of expansion work taking the capacity of Villa Park to 53,000 ahead of Euro 2028.
Birmingham City Council approved £100m plans in January for a first phase of redevelopment that will see the North Stand demolished in order to add 7,400 seats, taking the overall capacity to 50,000. But costs are set to increase further.
Villa Park was included in the 10 stadiums proposed to stage matches if the UK and Ireland win the race to host Euro 2028.
While not confirmed, the club hinted at ‘phase 2’ in its planning application, with possible minor upgrades being considered to the Doug Ellis and Holte End stands.
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