Stamford Bridge - knock it down and start again?

It's the issue that has the potential to tear Chelsea apart from within

- BY MALIK OUZIA

To get a handle on the complexities involved in Chelsea's long-stalling plan to redevelop their stadium, consider the series of players and events that have scuppered past attempts.

There were the Malaysian property developers who swooped to buy Battersea Power Station more than a decade ago, trumping Chelsea's bid for the site they viewed as the ideal new home.

There was the single family, the Crosthwaites, who lived near Stamford Bridge and secured an injunction against a rebuild that would have infringed on the "right to light" in their home.

The Salisbury nerve-agent attack did not help either. As tensions with Russia simmered, Roman Abramovich saw his UK visa renewal delayed and pulled the plug on his stadium plans, unwilling, according to the BBC, to back a major project in a country where he was not allowed to work.

Even Henry VIII had his say. Were Chelsea to expand the height of Stamford Bridge, it might obscure a protected sightline between St Paul's Cathedral and King Henry's Mound in Richmond.

So, that's real estate rivals, angry neighbours, geopolitics and deceased Tudor monarchs, before you even get to sating the usual suspects: local business owners, two different borough councils, City Hall, the Government, Transport for London and, of course, a huge, worldwide fanbase of too diverse an opinion to be satisfied all at once.

Where to go, what to do and how? These are the issues supporters debate and which, according to co-owner Todd Boehly of all people, have the potential to tear the club apart from within.

Boehly's admission last week that he and majority shareholder Clearlake Capital would have to be on the same page on their stadium ambitions or else go their separate ways was surprising. So, too, given Chelsea's two decades of effort without progress, was his confidence in insisting: "We'll figure it out."

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