Money Grabber

In somewhat sad news, word has reached us that Chelsea FC are considering charging supporters for the privilege of attending this season’s training day at Stamford Bridge. We understand that the club will be asking adults for £5 while children will be charged £3. In previous years, this popular day out has been free.

If it is the case that the club have decided that attendees must pay to watch the players train, it will be another blow to already financially hard-pressed supporters who have seen the price of the 10/11 season ticket rise. Meanwhile, admission to games on a match-by-match basis has also gone up.

As well as that and despite an ongoing and well supported campaign led by cfcuk, CFCNet and Chelsea Supporters Group, Gourlay again rejected proposals for a 16-21-year-old (discounted) season ticket. In the last Fans’ Forum meeting of last season (which the Chief Executive did not attend), it was pointed out that despite the fact that 16-year-olds are not old enough to drive a car, vote in elections, purchase alcohol or fight for their country, Chelsea FC regards them as adult and insists on charging them adult prices for admission to games.

Chelsea’s drive to ‘save money’ even extended to the abandonment of the discounted rate for students.

In other ‘financial cutbacks’ and despite the fact that for the past few seasons the club has helped supporters attend away matches that otherwise might have been difficult to get to, Gourlay has also imposed a scheme that will, this season, limit the subsidised transport that has recently been crucial in ensuring that Chelsea’s away support is usually at full strength.

Supporters’ representatives will be meeting club officials next week for discussions pertaining to which matches will be the most difficult for loyal Blues to travel to in the forthcoming season and, as such, (hopefully) make arrangements for transport to be put in place.

Somewhat bizarrely, CEO Gourlay wanted supporters representatives to decide which games would be ‘worthy’ of club arranged travel last season prior to this season’s fixtures being published and even before the promotion and relegation issues had been concluded.

Chelsea’s attitude towards their supporters has changed under the new regime that has been in place since the appointment of Ron Gourlay as Chief Executive in that ‘making money’ seems to be the first priority and, unfortunately, his agenda is hitting financially hard-pressed supporters whose previous undoubted loyalty to the club is being pushed to the limit because of monetary constraints.

Despite the fact that Chelsea 1st team players earn more in one week than the vast majority of supporters earn in two or three years, let alone one, the club seem intent on extracting every last penny they can from their dedicated supporters.

Many have been left with the feeling that years of loyalty to Chelsea counts for nothing with some suggesting that the club would like to see a fall in the number of season-tickets holders because it would mean that Chelsea would make more money selling their seats to ‘day-trippers and tourists’ on a match-by-match basis.

Hopefully, if the rumours about the club charging for training day are correct, the release of the information by us here at cfcuk.net may go some way to persuading the powers that be to have a change of heart.

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