By David Gold at the Dolder Grand in Zurich
November 8 – Populous Senior Principal, John Barrow, has claimed that Chelsea should stay at Stamford Bridge rather than move away from what he called “their birthplace.”
The Chelsea chief executive, Ron Gourlay, yesterday raised the prospect of the club leaving their Stamford Bridge home at the International Football Arena conference here.
“We want to be number one but we have one of smallest stadiums in Europe,” Gourlay said.
“But we have a stadium slightly larger than 40,000 which drops to 38,000 on Champions League nights.
“If we don’t find a solution we will get left behind.
“We have outgrown our stadium and tried every way possible to extend capacity.
“We need a 60-65,000 [seater] stadium.
“We have the eighth biggest stadium in England and the 61st in Europe.”
Last week Chelsea suffered a setback in their bid to buy the freehold for Stamford Bridge from their supporters – the Chelsea Pitch Owners – who acquired the rights to the land in 1993 when the prospect of the club becoming homeless was very real and subsequently leased the ground back to the team.
Barrow has worked on some of the world’s most iconic stadia including Wembley Stadium, Real Madrid’s Bernabeu, the Olympic Stadia for the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Sochi 2014 Winter Games, and strongly believes they should and will find a way to stay at their current home.
“A club like Chelsea with all the resources it has must find a solution,” he said.
“My personal opinion is that they should stay where they are and find a clever way out…Ron (Gourlay) yesterday discussed the various approaches to potential sites.
“It’s a real dilemma…Chelsea should strive for a similar stadium to Arsenal and maybe include a roof.
“Each stadium should build on the previous one.
“[They] certainly will find a solution, they know what they are doing.
“It’s bringing the local councils and authorities, the various issues but most important is to stay in their birthplace.”
Meanwhile, The Takeover Panel is reportedly considering an investigation into the sudden sale of a number of shares in the Chelsea Pitch Owners since the club expressed its desire to purchase the freehold.
Solicitors of the “Say No CPO” (SNCPO) group have written to the panel to question whether purchases of these shares influenced the result of the vote.
An SNCPO spokesman said: “Although shareholders defeated the proposal, suspicion remains about 2,000 new CPO shares sold to a small number of people.
“It also appears that the majority of these shares were issued despite being beyond the number authorised for sale by CPO shareholders at the last AGM.”
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