Chelsea Football Club: Pride of London amid shadow of uncertainties

Table of Content hide

1 History and pre-Roman Abramovich era

2 Abramovich era

3 The end of the Abramovich era

4 Chelsea fans

5 Chelsea awards and trophies

6 Also Read:

History and pre-Roman Abramovich era

Chelsea Football Club is based in London and plays in the English Premier League. The club was established in 1905 and has won six league titles, five league cups, eight FA cups and five community shields. It is rated as one of the best in the world and the only English club to have won three active European trophies; two UEFA champions league, two UEFA Europa cups, two UEFA super cups; and one FIFA club world cup. The club has been rated as the fourth most successful club in England due to the trophies in its name.

Chelsea Football Club stadium, known as Stamford Bridge, has been the club’s home since its inception, while the club’s home jersey is royal blue. The club sometimes chooses other colours of jerseys for their away games. They have picked white and blue stripes, black among others as away strips in the past but currently dons black, yellow shirts with black stripes, black shorts and black socks, or green and black blended shirts with black socks.

The club uses the symbolic lion rampant regardant holding a staff as their ceremonial crested features. The ceremonial lion indicates the club’s dominance and resilience to always be at the forefront in all competitions. The club is popular despite being around some rivalries in London. Football clubs like Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Leeds United have always been the biggest rivals the club faces over time. Chelsea have been regarded as the most successful club in London since the 2000s.

Chelsea Football Club had its bad moments before the 2000s. The club went into a financial decline in the late 1970s, causing the club to lose the majority of its star players, who were sold. As a result of this, the club moved to the relegation zone, and with that, there was no chance for it to compete at the elite level anymore. In 1982, it rose to another level of financial stability; Chelsea was sold to Ken Bates for just £1, recognised as the nominal price. After the change of ownership, which had happened after they sold the Stamford Bridge freehold to those who would develop the stadium, Chelsea Football Club started doing better than it was.

As a result of the change of ownership in the club, Chelsea moved up from the third division to second for the first time, with that they moved on to perform excellently in the second division on their promotion. The club hired John Neal, who put an impressive team together to compete greatly. In no time, John Neal’s efforts to build the team from scratch began to pay off. Chelsea won the 1983-1984 second division title and they also finished in the sixth position before they got back to relegation. But it didn’t take a long time before the club came back to the first division after winning the second division title again in the 1988-1989 season.

Following their second return to the first division, Chelsea’s performance was lukewarm at first, but in the long run, they started fighting back strongly. As an affirmation of how Chelsea fought back, the club reached the FA final in 1994. In 1996, it appointed Ruud Gullit as manager, and without hesitation, they started competing so hard in the top division. Under Ruud Gullit’s management, some internationally recognised players were signed to the club, and they ended the club’s trophy-less period by winning the 1996 FA Cup. Winning the FA Cup increased Chelsea’s fortune.

Consequently, the club parted ways with Gullit and appointed Gianluca Vialli as a replacement in 1996. Upon Vialli’s arrival, Chelsea recorded the greatest achievement since their establishment by winning the league cup, UEFA Cup and UEFA super cup. Chelsea later went on to win the 2000 FA trophy. The club competed fiercely to win the title from 1998 to 1999. Unfortunately, they ended up not winning it. Still, they played their first champions league competition and finished four points behind the title winner – Manchester United. Chelsea qualified for their second champions league competition in 2002 under a new manager, Claudio Ranieri, who replaced Vialli, whom the club had sacked in 2000.

Abramovich era

The Abramovich era started when Ken Bates decided to leave Chelsea Football Club to the Russian oligarch and billionaire, Roman Abramovich, in 2003. Abramovich was a governor in the Russian government in 2000. Although he holds Israeli and Portuguese citizenship, he is a notable figure in the Russian government. Abramovich’s wealth was traced to oil, making him one of the richest people in Russia at the time. Following his emergence as the owner of Chelsea Football Club in 2003, Abramovich spent about £100 million on the club. Unfortunately, Ranieri did not win any trophy and was sacked and replaced by Jose Mourinho, who had won the champions league in the prior season at the Portuguese club, Porto. Jose Mourinho’s time in Chelsea was remarkable. He won two league titles consecutively– making Chelsea the fifth club in England to win the league titles back-to-back in history.

Due to some poor performances, Chelsea sacked Jose Mourinho and replaced him with Avram Grant, who took the club to its first champions league final in 2008. Unfortunately, they lost to Manchester United in Moscow via penalty shootout, leading to his sack. The club won another FA Cup in 2009 under an interim coach, Guus Hiddink. Carlo Ancelotti eventually succeeded Hiddink and won another league title as well as the FA cup – a historic double in that season. He was however sacked in 2011 and replaced by Roberto Di Matteo. Under his tutelage, Chelsea went ahead to win their first champions league title in Munich after defeating Bayern Munich on penalties in 2012. In the following year, Chelsea won the UEFA Europa League. In 2013, Jose Mourinho returned to win the league, although he was again sacked for bad performance. Chelsea appointed Antonio Conte as the manager in 2017 and won its sixth league title. Conte was sacked and replaced by Maurizio Sarri, who won another UEFA Europa cup for the club. Frank Lampard replaced Sarri, who left to join Juventus. He was later sacked in the middle of the 2020–2021 season and Thomas Tuchel, who won the club’s second champions league title, was appointed. He won the UEFA super cup as well as Chelsea’s first club world cup.

The end of the Abramovich era

Even though the Abramovich era recorded a huge success, the Russian billionaire was forced to let go of his club due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Abramovich is one of the sanctioned Russians by the British government, claiming that they were complicit with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in attacking Ukraine for political reasons. As a result of this, the control of Chelsea Football Club was taken away from Abramovich, making the club’s account frozen by the British government. With the new development, Chelsea have begun to face lots of challenges which have even extended to the club’s inability to pay some of the workers’ wages.

Chelsea fans

Chelsea Football Club is one of the clubs with the highest supporters in the world. Thay have the sixth-highest average fans in attendance for all matches. In Nigeria, Chelsea has the highest supporters. The club has a great fan base because of their commitment to always winning their matches no matter what.

Unfortunately for Chelsea’s fans, they are full of uncertainties about what will happen to the club. Since the sanction of Roman Abramovich, he has decided to sell the club, but nothing positive has yet happened. All fingers are crossed amid the holocaust; the club is fighting to know what will be the outcome.