Chelsea FC stadium move knocked back by landowners

Chelsea FC’s plans to move to a new stadium were delivered a blow yesterday, after the football club’s proposal to buy back its stadium Stamford Bridge was rejected by its landowners.

In a fractious meeting, only 61.6% of the shareholders in the Chelsea Pitch Owners company supported the move, well short of the 75% required to force through the acquisition.

Acquisition of the Stamford Bridge land is seen as the first step towards the club realising its aspiration of building a larger new stadium elswhere.

Club chairman Bruce Buck told the Guardian that club owner Roman Abramovich was “disappointed” by the outcome.

Buck said: “Roman’s disappointed, but he respects that Chelsea Pitch Owners have spoken.

“Obviously, we had asked them to support our proposal and only 62% have supported it, so we’re disappointed and it’s a setback. But we always knew that getting 75% of the vote was going to be very difficult.”