Maybe Mike Ashley Has an Idea for Roman Abramovich

Your Name Here... If the Price is Right

On the heels of Newcastle’s stadium being saddled with the crappy name of its crappy owner’s crappy company, comes word from London that the billionaire’s playtoy known as Chelsea FC is willing to follow in Mike Askely’s likely deeply-dented footsteps.

From the Guardian: Chelsea’s new chief executive, Ron Gourlay, has revealed the club would consider selling the naming rights for Stamford Bridge… Gourlay made it clear that such a deal would be possible on the proviso the name Stamford Bridge was retained in any agreement with a suitable blue-chip company.

Certainly Manchester United had in mind only dealing with a blue-chip company when they struck a shirt sponsorship deal with AIG.

The really fun quote comes when Gourlay says that Chelsea are not prepared to “allow our rival clubs in England and Europe to gain a competitive advantage over us in terms of the revenue they can generate through either expanding the capacity of their existing stadia or moving to a new stadium”

Right because having an owner who is willing to waste upwards of £45M on Sheva and Wayne Bridge without having the slightest bit of impact on the clubs’ ability to sign additional players isn’t any kind of advantage?

Anyway, good on Chelsea for insisting the original name be part of any deal. Wouldn’t want to go upsetting the Normans.