The graphite and tangerine strip has appeared in lists of the worst football kits ever. This contributed to the club’s original «pensioner» nickname, and remained for the next half-century, though it never appeared on the shirts. In July 2022, it was reported that the club’s new owner Todd Boehly had appointed American architect Janet Marie Smith to oversee the renovation of the stadium. In May 2012, the club made a formal bid to purchase Battersea Power Station, with a view to developing the site into a new stadium, but lost out to a Malaysian consortium. Owing to its location next to a main road and two railway lines, fans can only enter Stamford Bridge via the Fulham Road, which places constraints on expansion due to health and safety regulations.
The club brought in Graham Potter from Brighton & Hove Albion to replace Tuchel on 8 September 2022. The UK government approved the £4.25bn takeover, ending Abramovich’s 19-year ownership of the club. On 7 May 2022, Chelsea confirmed that terms had been agreed for a new ownership group, led by Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter and Hansjörg Wyss, to acquire the club. In the following weeks, reports emerged of Abramovich’s involvement in brokering a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia and securing safe evacuation corridors in besieged Ukrainian cities.
“It was really fast (the red card challenge), I saw the reaction that everyone was on the pitch. 💬 “They are a really good team, they have scored seven goals with corners and we have scored eight. Caicedo was out of control most of the match, his red card is going to hurt us in the next few matches. There is not much turnaround time for any team at the moment as we enter a busy festive period and the same is true for Arsenal. Trevoh Chalobah improbably headed the hosts into the lead after the half-time break, scoring from a corner against the team usually so adept at set pieces.
Lucky for Mikel Merino he was not injured by the tackle from Moises Caicedo which brought the Chelsea man a red card. “We had four players with yellow cards and you could see they were targeting those players. 💬 “A really tough one, two teams who played with a lot of intensity, aggression and will. It’s also the earliest into a PL campaign Chelsea have had four players sent off. We had one day less to recover, we lost two important players before coming here. “It was a lot of factors (that contributed to the performance).
Chelsea operate a women’s football team, Chelsea Football Club Women, formerly known as Chelsea Ladies. After winning the UEFA Conference League in 2025, Chelsea became the first club to win all four main UEFA competitions. The club has a variety of other sponsors and official partners, which include Cadbury, EA Sports, FICO, Hilton Worldwide, 3 (company), Levy Restaurants, MSC Cruises, Oman Air, Parimatch, Rexona, Singha, The St. James, Trivago and BingX. Ticketing platform Fever became the club’s sleeve sponsor for the 2024–25 season, before that deal was ended mid-season and replaced with rival ticketing platform Live Nation. In 2022–23 season, Amber Group became the new sleeve sponsor, with the flagship digital asset platform WhaleFin appearing on the sleeves of both men’s and women’s teams.
From 20 March 2004 to 26 October 2008, Chelsea went a record 86 consecutive league matches at home without defeat, beating the previous record of 63 matches unbeaten set by Liverpool between 1978 and 1980. The club’s biggest top-flight win was an 8–0 victory against Wigan Athletic in 2010, which was matched in 2012 against Aston Villa. Lampard is Chelsea’s all-time top goalscorer, having scored 211 goals in 648 games (2001–2014); he passed Bobby Tambling’s longstanding record of 202 in May 2013. Every starting player in Chelsea’s 57 games of the 2013–14 season was a full international – a new club record. A 2012 survey, conducted among 1,200 supporters of the top four league divisions across the country, found that many clubs’ main rivals had changed since 2003 and reported that Chelsea fans consider Tottenham to be their main rivals, above Arsenal and Manchester United. According to Home Office statistics, 126 Chelsea fans were arrested for football-related offences during the 2009–10 season, the third highest in the division, and 27 banning orders were issued, the fifth-highest in the division.
For the centenary season this was accompanied by the words ‘100 Years’ and ‘Centenary 2005–2006’ on the top and bottom of the crest respectively. The new crest was officially adopted for the start of the 2005–06 season and marked a return to the older design, used from 1953 to 1986, featuring a blue heraldic lion holding a staff. This lasted for the next 19 years, with some modifications such as the use of different colours, including red from 1987 to 1995, and yellow from 1995 until 1999, before the white returned. The new badge featured a more naturalistic non-heraldic lion, in white and not blue, standing over the C.F.C. initials. It was based on elements in the coat of arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea with the «lion rampant regardant» taken from the arms of then club president Viscount Chelsea and the staff from the Abbots of Westminster, former Lords of the Manor of Chelsea.
That doesn’t mean complacency and playing slow but trying to find the wings and try to cross into the box. The team showed a good mentality coming back from a goal down. This is a tough stadium to come to, we take the point. On the other hand, we know it will be a long season.
However, the stadium is sometimes still referred to as part of «Chelsea Village» or «The Village». The intention was that these facilities would provide extra revenue to support the football side of the business, but they were less successful than hoped and before the Abramovich takeover in 2003 the debt taken on to finance them was a major burden on the club. In 1904, the ground was acquired by businessman Gus Mears and his brother Joseph, who had purchased nearby land (formerly a large market garden) with the aim of staging football matches on the now 12.5 acre (51,000 m2) site.
Chelsea won promotion to the First Division in their second season, and yo-yoed between the First and Second Divisions in its early years. Chelsea have rivalries with fellow London teams Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, and also with Leeds United. They also won the FIFA Club World Cup in 2021 and 2025, the latter being the contest’s first iteration with 32 teams. They went on to win their first UEFA Champions League title in 2012 and repeated the feat in 2021. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football, playing their home games at Stamford Bridge.
Why is one a red card and one not.» We were a much better team than them 11 vs 11 but then we lost a player. The performances have been fantastic. The Chelsea manager is seeing tangible progress from his team as they keep pressure on at the top of the table.
They reached the final of Chelsea House Review the UEFA Women’s Champions League for the first time, losing to Barcelona 4–0. The club were promoted to the Premier Division for the first time in 2005 as Southern Division champions and won the Surrey County Cup nine times between 2003 and 2013. They have been affiliated to the men’s team since 2004 and are part of the club’s Community Development programme.
On 13 July 2025, he also guided Chelsea to victory in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, the first edition of the expanded competition, when Chelsea secured the trophy with a 3–0 win over Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain in the final. He led Chelsea to win the Conference League after a 4–1 win against Real Betis in the final in Wrocław, as they became the first team to win all of the European trophies. Under Lampard the club would only win one of their last 11 matches resulting in a 9% win percentage. In 2009–10, his successor Carlo Ancelotti led them to their first Premier League and FA Cup Double, becoming the first English top-flight club to score 100 league goals in a season since 1963.
Over £100 million was spent on new players, but Ranieri was unable to deliver any trophies, and was replaced by José Mourinho. The club’s new owner was Russian oligarch and billionaire Roman Abramovich, who took on responsibility for the club’s £80 million of debt, quickly paying some of it. 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). 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.
One-time Chelsea centre forward, Jack Cock, who by then was playing for Millwall, was the star of the film and several scenes were shot at Stamford Bridge, including on the pitch, the boardroom, and the dressing rooms. The deal with Infinite Athlete lasted only one season, and Chelsea started the 2024–25 season again without a primary shirt sponsor. Chelsea was subsequently sponsored by Coors beer (1994–97), Autoglass (1997–2001), Emirates (2001–05), Samsung Mobile (2005–08), Samsung (2008–15) and Yokohama Tyres (2015–20). As of May 2022, Chelsea was ranked the eighth-most valuable club in the world according to Forbes, and eighth according to Deloitte, with an annual commercial revenue of €493.1 million. On 30 May, it was confirmed that the Boehly consortium had completed the purchase of the club.
