＜CHELSEA＞Chelsea F.C. 2024

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Association football club in London, England

Football club

Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, West London. Founded in 1905, they play their home games at Stamford Bridge.[5] The club competes in the Premier League, the top division of English football. They won their first major honour, the League championship, in 1955. The club won the FA Cup for the first time in 1970, their first European honour, the Cup Winners Cup, in 1971, and became the third English club to win the Club World Cup in 2022.

Chelsea are one of five clubs to have won all three pre-1999 main European club competitions, and the only club to have won all three major European competitions twice. They are also the only London club to have won the Champions League and the Club World Cup.[6] Domestically, the club has won six league titles, eight FA Cups, five League Cups, and four FA Community Shields. Internationally, they have won the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Cup Winners Cup and the UEFA Super Cup twice each, and the FIFA Club World Cup once since their inception. In terms of overall trophies won, it is the fourth-most successful club in English football.

The club has rivalries with neighbouring teams Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, and a historic rivalry with Leeds United. In terms of club value, Chelsea are the seventh most valuable football club in the world (as of 2021[update]), worth £2.39 billion ($3.2 billion), and are the eighth highest-earning football club in the world, with earnings of over €493.1 million (as of May 2022).[7][8]

In 1904, Gus Mears acquired the Stamford Bridge athletics stadium in Fulham with the aim of turning it into a football ground. An offer to lease it to nearby Fulham F.C. was turned down, so Mears opted to found his own club to use the stadium. As there was already a team named Fulham in the borough, the name of the adjacent borough of Chelsea was chosen for the new club; names like Kensington FC, Stamford Bridge FC and London FC were also considered.[9] Chelsea F.C. was founded on 10 March 1905 at The Rising Sun pub (now The Butchers Hook),[1][10] opposite the present-day main entrance to the ground on Fulham Road, and were elected to the Football League shortly afterwards.

Chelsea won promotion to the First Division in their second season, and yo-yoed between the First and Second Divisions in their early years. They reached the 1915 FA Cup Final, where they lost to Sheffield United at Old Trafford, and finished third in the First Division in 1920, the clubs best league campaign to that point.[11] Chelsea had a reputation for signing star players[12] and attracted large crowds. The club had the highest average attendance in English football in ten separate seasons[13] including 1907–08,[14]1909–10,[15]1911–12,[16]1912–13,[17]1913–14[18] and 1919–20.[19][20] They were FA Cup semi-finalists in 1920 and 1932 and remained in the First Division throughout the 1930s, but success eluded the club in the inter-war years.

Former Arsenal and England centre-forward Ted Drake was appointed manager in 1952 and proceeded to modernise the club. He removed the clubs Chelsea pensioner crest, improved the youth set-up and training regime, rebuilt the side with shrewd signings from the lower divisions and amateur leagues, and led Chelsea to their first major trophy success – the League championship – in 1954–55. The following season saw UEFA create the European Champions Cup, but after objections from The Football League, Chelsea were persuaded to withdraw from the competition before it started.[21][22] Chelsea failed to build on this success, and spent the remainder of the 1950s in mid-table. Drake was dismissed in 1961 and replaced by player-coach Tommy Docherty.

Docherty built a new team around the group of talented young players emerging from the clubs youth set-up, and Chelsea challenged for honours throughout the 1960s, enduring several near-misses. They were on course for a treble of League, FA Cup and League Cup going into the final stages of the 1964–65 season, winning the League Cup but faltering late on in the other two.[23] In three seasons the side were beaten in three major semi-finals and were FA Cup runners-up. Under Dochertys successor, Dave Sexton, Chelsea won the FA Cup in 1970, beating Leeds United 2–1 in a final replay. The following year, Chelsea took their first European honour, a UEFA Cup Winners Cup triumph, with another replayed win, this time over Real Madrid in Athens.

The late 1970s through to the 80s was a turbulent period for Chelsea. An ambitious redevelopment of Stamford Bridge threatened the financial stability of the club,[24] star players were sold and the team were relegated. Further problems were caused by a notorious hooligan element among the support, which was to plague the club throughout the decade.[25] In 1982, Chelsea were, at the nadir of their fortunes, acquired by Ken Bates for the nominal sum of £1, from Mears great-nephew Brian Mears for £1. Bates bought a controlling stake in the club and floated Chelsea on the AIM stock exchange in March 1996 although by now the Stamford Bridge freehold had been sold to property developers, meaning the club faced losing their home.[27] On the pitch, the team had fared little better, coming close to relegation to the Third Division for the first time, but in 1983 manager John Neal put together an impressive new team for minimal outlay. Chelsea won the Second Division title in 1983–84 and established themselves in the top division with two top-six finishes, before being relegated again in 1988. The club bounced back immediately by winning the Second Division championship in 1988–89.

After a long-running legal battle, Bates reunited the stadium freehold with the club in 1992 by doing a deal with the banks of the property developers, who had been bankrupted by a market crash.[28] In the mid-1990s Chelsea fan and businessman Matthew Harding became a director and loaned the club £26 million to build the new North Stand and invest in new players.[29] Chelseas form in the new Premier League was unconvincing, although they did reach the 1994 FA Cup Final. The appointment of Ruud Gullit as player-manager in 1996 began an upturn in the teams fortunes. He added several top international players to the side and led the club to their first major honour since 1971, the FA Cup. Gullit was replaced by Gianluca Vialli, whose reign saw Chelsea win the League Cup, the UEFA Cup Winners Cup and the UEFA Super Cup in 1998, and the FA Cup in 2000. They also mounted a strong title challenge in 1998–99, finishing four points behind champions Manchester United, and made their first appearance in the UEFA Champions League. Vialli was sacked in favour of Claudio Ranieri, who guided Chelsea to the 2002 FA Cup Final and Champions League qualification in 2002–03.

"I dont want to throw my money away but its really about having fun and that means success and trophies."

—Roman Abramovich, in an interview with the BBC following the takeover.[30]

With the club facing an apparent financial crisis,[31] Bates unexpectedly sold Chelsea F.C. in June 2003 for £60 million.[32] In so doing, he reportedly recognised a personal profit of £17 million on the club he had bought for £1 in 1982 (his stake had been diluted to just below 30% over the years). The clubs new owner was Russian oligarch and billionaire Roman Abramovich, who also took on responsibility for the clubs £80 million of debt, quickly paying some of it. Sergei Pugachev, a former friend of Vladimir Putin, explained that "Putin personally told me of his plan to acquire the Chelsea Football Club in order to increase his influence and raise Russia’s profile, not only with the elite but with ordinary British people."[33] Abramovich reportedly denied that he was acting under control from the Kremlin.[33]

Over £100 million was spent on new players, but Ranieri was unable to deliver any trophies,[34] and was replaced by José Mourinho.[35] Under Mourinho, Chelsea became the fifth English team to win back-to-back league championships since the Second World War (2004–05 and 2005–06),[36] in addition to winning an FA Cup (2007) and two League Cups (2005 and 2007). After a po...