About Stamford Bridge
Stamford Bridge is a football stadium in Fulham, adjacent to the borough of Chelsea in West London. It is the home of Chelsea Football Club. With a capacity of 40,341, it is the ninth largest stadium of the Premier League. Opened in 1877, the stadium was used by the London Athletic Club until 1905, when new owner Gus Mears founded Chelsea Football Club to occupy the ground.
The stadium has undergone major changes over the years, transforming from a vast bowl with a running track into a tight, four-sided all-seater football ground. The stands are the Matthew Harding Stand, the East Stand, the Shed End, and the West Stand. The Shed End is the traditional home of the most vocal supporters.
Despite being one of the older grounds, it is located in a high-density urban area, making expansion difficult. The distinctive hotel and apartment complex ("Chelsea Village") is integrated into the site. It offers a compact and intense atmosphere, particularly for London derbies and European nights.
The freehold of the ground is owned by Chelsea Pitch Owners plc (CPO), a non-profit fan-shareholder corporation formed on 12 December 1993 to protect the ground from redevelopment; CPO holds approximately 32,000 individual small shareholdings averaging 100 pounds each and leases the freehold to Chelsea FC on a long-term nominal-rent arrangement. Ownership of the operating club changed hands on 30 May 2022 when Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital acquired Chelsea FC from Roman Abramovich for 4.25 billion pounds sterling (the largest sale price ever recorded for a football club at the time), with a further 1.75 billion pounds committed to infrastructure investment including a potential redevelopment or relocation of the ground. The 5-hectare plot at Fulham Road SW6 1HS sits adjacent to the London borough boundary between Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea.