Chelsea consider selling the little bit of history they have

[bobby benitez]

New Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay has dropped a strong hint that the Blues will allow naming rights at Stamford Bridge.

But Gourlay, who recently succeeded Peter Kenyon in the post, has assured fans the name Stamford Bridge would be retained in any future agreement with a suitable blue-chip company.

The news comes after Newcastle owner Mike Ashley announced last week that he is looking into selling the naming rights at St James' Park, which caused upset among Magpies fans.

But Gourlay says that the Blues must be prepared to consider naming rights at Stamford Bridge to ensure rival clubs do not get a competitive edge in terms of revenue.

Heritage paramount
He told Chelsea TV: "Retaining the heritage of the stadium is paramount to considering such a move but we think that is achievable and on that basis we would enter into discussions over naming rights with the right partner for Chelsea.

"We understand that this is a sensitive issue for our fans and that is why we would keep the name Stamford Bridge in any deal.

"What we are not prepared to happen, and I am sure our fans will appreciate this, is allow our rival clubs in England and Europe to gain a competitive advantage over us in terms of the revenue they can generate through either expanding the capacity of their existing stadia or moving to a new stadium and then invest that upside in their team or the club.

"Those possibilities are not open to Chelsea for the foreseeable future because of the restrictions in expanding our stadium and the issues around finding a new site, so that means we have to be creative and look at our sponsorship architecture and see if we can create new value and new opportunities that keeps us competitive."


Long run
Gourlay added: "Our stadium does very well at the moment in competing with the bigger, and in some cases newer, stadia of our rivals. But they have more possibilities in the long run than we do. We cannot sell any more tickets to Chelsea fans as we sell out virtually every match within our limited capacity.

"The match day experience at Stamford Bridge and the relationship with our fans has improved greatly through initiatives such as our flexible ticketing policy for all cup matches, the freezing of non-hospitality ticket prices for the last four seasons for Premier League matches and subsidised or free travel to a significant number of away games.

"But we need to keep evolving and move the business forward to support the football side and the club generally. This is a potentially realistic way of doing that."

Who ever suggests the best name gets a plastic flag

[RedWally]

The Marks & Sparks Bridge

[bigron1892]

Seem to be the way a few teams are going at the moment and id say IF we ever get a new stadium we will probally go in that direction too..

Dont think it makes much of a difference to the real fan as Anfield would always be Anfield to me no matter what its called.