Chelsea

Chelsea Football Club is a professional English football club. Fans also call it “The Blues” or “The Pensioners”. It is located in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. The club’s home is Stamford Bridge football stadium.

The other name given by supporters to the stadium is “The Bridge”. The capacity of the stadium is 42,055.

The owner of the club is well-known Roman Abramovich, who bought the Blues for £140 million.The present directors are: Eugene Tenenbaum and Peter Kenyon. Eugene Tenenbaum is one of Roman Abramovich’s companion and the director of Millhouse Capital UK. It is a consulting company to Mr Abramovich. Peter Kenyon is a chief executive. He is one of the best known executives in world football and holds senior positions at UEFA on the new strategic board, competitions committee, new media committee and European Club Forum.

The chairman is Bruce Buck. Bruce has been a Chelsea supporter since coming to London in 1983 and has been a season ticket holder since 1991. He is a shareholder in Chelsea Limited, the ultimate owner of the club, and the company used by Roman Abramovich for the takeover in 2003 and is managing partner in Europe for the US law firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. The manager is Avraham (Avram) Grant who came to England to become Technical Director of Portsmouth F.C. in 2006. His friend Roman Abramovich then brought him to Chelsea F.C. as Director of Football, and, following the controversial departure of José Mourinho, he became the manager of Premier League side Chelsea F.C. in 2007. Through its history Chelsea had a long list of managers:

• 1905 – 1907 – John Tait Robertson
• 1907 – 1933 – David Calderhead
• 1933 – 1939 – Leslie Knighton
• 1939 – 1952 – Billy Birrell
• 1952 – 1961 – Ted Drake
• 1962 – 1967 – Tommy Docherty
• 1967 – 1974 – Dave Sexton
• 1974 – 1975 – Ron Suart
• 1975 - 1977 – Eddie McCreadie
• 1977 – 1978 – Ken Shellito
• 1978 – 1989 – Danny Blanchflower
• 1979 – 1981 – Geoff Hurst
• 1981 – 1985 – John Neal
• 1985 – 1988 – John Hollins
• 1988 - 1991 – Bobby Campbell
• 1991 – 1993 – Ian Porterfield
• 1993 – David Webb
• 1993 – 1996 – Glenn Hoddle
• 1996 – 1998 - Ruud Gullit
• 1998 - 2000 – Gianluca Vialli
• 2000 - 2004 – Claudio Ranieri
• 2004 – 2007 – Jose Mourinho
• 2007 – Avram Grant

Now the club plays in the Barclaycard Premiership League. They spent most of their history in the top of English football. Due to well-qualified managers, directors and of course players Chelsea has a lot of victories. Among them are:

Chelsea is one of the most famous English clubs. It has millions of fans all over the world. Roman Abramovich has said that he wants to turn the English football club into the most successful in the world. For that he spent about £240 million on players since his £140 million takeover at Stamford Bridge in 2003. This invaluable squad includes: