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Chelsea's home ground, Stamford Bridge, is the 11th largest stadium in the Premier League in terms of capacity. The stadium can seat 41,798 people at a time. All the other top-five clubs have larger stadiums, while St. James Park, The Stadium of Light, and Villa Park also have a larger capacity.
The Blues are a global powerhouse but don't have the stadium that goes with it.
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In 2018, Roman Abramovich had plans to renovate the stadium into a "Cathedral of Football". The project was abandoned by Chelsea, shortly after.
The reason given was the "unfavorable investment climate," but Roman Abramovich's inability to function in the UK was a more apparent reason. Why did it take Abramovich 15 years to propose a rebuild, and what are the challenges to a potential rebuild?
Stamford Bridge - Chelsea Pitch Owners
The Chelsea Pitch Owners Group, or CPO, was formed in 1993 to protect the ground from a sale to property developers. More than 10,000 people own a share of the pitch, and anyone can buy a part of it. The CPO also owns the naming rights of the club.
If any owner wants to relocate the club, they would have to get 75% of votes in their favor to use the club's name.
Abramovich tried to buy the rights in 2011 but lost the vote (as per The Guardian) even though fans held him in such high regard. Any new owner is also likely to fail the vote, so the best and only plan for the next prospective owner is to renovate in the current location.
The Rebuild
With the CPO ruling out a move away from Stamford Bridge, the only option is to renovate the stadium or rebuild it. In 2017, an initial rebuild would have cost around £1.4 billion, the amount has now reached £2.2 billion (according to the Daily Mail). While the 'Cathedral of Football' plan proposed by Abramovich would have been brilliant, a more modest rebuild would serve the same purpose.
Chelsea need to increase capacity, which is the main point of the rebuild. You can increase the capacity in two ways. The builders can dig down into the land, which could result in any number of things coming out from underneath. London is a historic city, and over time several things could be buried underneath the land.
Building vertically is another option available to the architects, but the stadium is located in a tricky area. There are laws in the UK that stop construction if a building blocks specific views. In this case, that view would be a line of vision between King Henry's Mound and St.Paul's Cathedral.
A horizontal expansion of the stadium would mean buying the surrounding land, diverting railway lines, etc.
Another issue is that if the stadium were to undergo a total rebuild, the team would have to play elsewhere for a few seasons. The new owners could do a phase-by-phase rebuild, which would allow the team to continue to play at Stamford Bridge while the stadium underwent renovation. That would likely be a much better option.
Chelsea's prospective owners are said to have plans for a rebuild. It is one of the objectives in the in-tray. The stadium is key to revenue because more seats means more people coming and spending time at Stamford Bridge during matchdays, generating higher incomes. Modern stadiums are meant to be an experience, and the new owners will want Stamford Bridge to mean a good day out along with the game.
