Chelsea F.C.

association football club in London, England

Chelsea Football Club is an English football club that plays in the Premier League. Their home stadium is Stamford Bridge in Fulham, London.

Chelsea
Full nameChelsea Football Club
Nickname(s)The Blues, The Pensioners[1]
Short nameCFC, CHE
Founded10 March 1905; 119 years ago (1905-03-10)[2]
GroundStamford Bridge
Capacity40,834[3]
Coordinates51°28′54″N 0°11′28″W / 51.48167°N 0.19111°W / 51.48167; -0.19111
OwnerClearlake Capital
ChairmanTodd Boehly
Head coachMauricio Pochettino
LeaguePremier League
2023–24Premier League, 6th of 20
WebsiteClub website
Current season

Chelsea is considered to be one of the most successful clubs in England, having won many trophies, including 6 Premier League, 2 UEFA Champions League, 2 UEFA Europa League, 5 League Cup, 8 FA Cup, 1 UEFA Super Cup and 2 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup titles. Their all-time highest goalscorer is Frank Lampard and their most successful goalkeeper (on the basis of clean sheets and titles statistics) is Petr Čech. Chelsea is owned by the American businessmans Todd Boehly, Mark Walter and Swiss businessman Hansjörg Wyss.

There was a supposed breakaway European Super League that Chelsea were apart of but this quickly collapsed as many English teams pulled out due to fan disagreement. Chelsea were the first of the English teams to pull out after Chelsea fans protested outside of the stadium before their match against Brighton.

History

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Chelsea started in 1905 and played the second division of the league. They won their first trophy in 1955, when they became Champions of the First Division. They won the FA Cup in 1970, 1997, 2000 and 2007. They won the League Cup in 1965, 1998, 2005 and 2007. In 1970s Chelsea failed to maintain their position of the first division, due to the financial difficulties. In 1990s they challenged the title of Premier League. They came close but did not win it until 2005 and 2006.

In 2003 the Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich, purchased Chelsea and invested lots of capital to employ new football players. He also hired Luiz Felipe Scolari as the manager of the club. Abramovich also employed Peter Kenyon as the chief executive to be responsible for the commercial strategies of the club. This made Chelsea stronger, and they won the Premier League in consecutive years. A third straight FA Premier League title slipped through Chelsea's fingertips after their failure to defeat Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium, meaning that Manchester United had won their ninth league title in fifteen tries.

On September 20, 2007, the very successful manager José Mourinho left the club by "mutual consent". This exit came just days after a shockingly poor performance which saw them barely scrape out a 1-1 draw in a Champions League tie against Norwegian side Rosenborg B.K.. Following Mourinho's exit, Chelsea made Director of Football Avram Grant, the former manager of Israel from 2002 to 2006, the new manager of the club, until May 2008. Grant took over with Chelsea trailing in the Premier League "title race" behind Manchester United and Arsenal, and managed to keep Chelsea in the hunt for the league until the last game of the season. He got Chelsea into the Champions League Final for the first time as well as the Carling Cup Final, but he was sacked at the end of the season, along with assistant Henk ten Cate. Grant was sacked from the job after he lost in the final in a 5-6 penalty shootout loss to Manchester United and replaced by Luiz Felipe Scolari, the then-Portugal coach, in August. However, after a poor run of results Scolari was sacked on February 9, 2009. Guus Hiddink took over the club until the rest of the season. In early June they played in the FA Cup final against Everton,[4] where Chelsea won 2-1, after Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba scored goals. In that final, Louis Saha of Everton scored the fastest goal in FA Cup history, in 25 seconds. A week later, the former Milan manager Carlo Ancelotti was named as the new manager of Chelsea. Antonio Conte was their manager until July 2018 and helped them win the 2016/17 league title. Frank Lampard, former Chelsea player, became Chelsea F.C.'s successor manager. He was sacked in mid-season of 2020/21 following series of poor performances.[5] Thomas Tuchel replaced him,[6] and successfully took Chelsea to the finals of UEFA Champions League 2020/21, played against Manchester City, held in Istanbul, Turkey. Chelsea won the final 1-0, with the winning goal scored by Kai Havertz.[7]

On May 7 2022, Roman Abramovich sold the club to consortium led by Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter and Hansjörg Wyss.

League position

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Season League Position
2000–01 Premier League 6th
2001–02 Premier League 6th
2002–03 Premier League 4th
2003–04 Premier League 2nd
2004–05 Premier League Champions
2005–06 Premier League Champions
2006–07 Premier League 2nd
2007–08 Premier League 2nd
2008–09 Premier League 3rd
2009–10 Premier League Champions
2010–11 Premier League 2nd
2011–12 Premier League 6th
2012–13 Premier League 3rd
2013–14 Premier League 3rd
2014–15 Premier League Champions
2015–16 Premier League 10th
2016–17 Premier League Champions
2017–18 Premier League 5th
2018–19 Premier League 3rd
2019–20 Premier League 4th
2020–21 Premier League 4th
2021–22 Premier League 3rd
2022–23 Premier League 12th

Former position

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Players

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First-team squad

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As of 31 August 2024[8]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
1 GK   Spain Robert Sánchez
2 DF   France Axel Disasi
3 DF   Spain Marc Cucurella
4 DF   England Tosin Adarabioyo
5 DF   France Benoît Badiashile
6 DF   England Levi Colwill
7 FW   Portugal Pedro Neto
8 MF   Argentina Enzo Fernández (vice-captain)
10 FW   Ukraine Mykhailo Mudryk
11 FW   England Noni Madueke
12 GK   Denmark Filip Jörgensen
13 GK   England Marcus Bettinelli
14 FW   Portugal João Félix
15 FW   Senegal Nicolas Jackson
17 MF   England Carney Chukwuemeka
No. Pos. Nation Player
18 FW   France Christopher Nkunku
19 FW   England Jadon Sancho (on loan from Manchester United)
20 MF   England Cole Palmer
21 DF   England Ben Chilwell
22 MF   England Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall
24 DF   England Reece James (captain)
25 MF   Ecuador Moisés Caicedo
27 DF   France Malo Gusto
29 DF   France Wesley Fofana
31 MF   Italy Cesare Casadei
37 MF   England Omari Kellyman
38 FW   Spain Marc Guiu
40 MF   Portugal Renato Veiga
45 MF   Belgium Roméo Lavia
47 GK   Finland Lucas Bergström

Out on loan

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As of 31 August 2024[9]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
GK   Spain Kepa Arrizabalaga (at AFC Bournemouth until 30 June 2025)
GK   Wales Eddie Beach (at Crawley Town until 30 June 2025)
GK   England Luke Campbell (at Hendon until 30 June 2025)
GK   England Ted Curd (at Hampton & Richmond Borough until 30 June 2025)
GK   Serbia Đorđe Petrović (at Strasbourg until 30 June 2025)
GK   England Teddy Sharman-Lowe (at Doncaster Rovers until 30 June 2025)
GK   United States Gabriel Slonina (at Barnsley until 30 June 2025)
DF   Argentina Aaron Anselmino (at Boca Juniors until 30 June 2025)
DF   England Trevoh Chalobah (at Crystal Palace until 30 June 2025)
DF   England Alfie Gilchrist (at Sheffield United until 30 June 2025)
No. Pos. Nation Player
DF   England Bashir Humphreys (at Burnley until 30 June 2025)
DF   United States Caleb Wiley (at Strasbourg until 30 June 2025)
DF   England Dylan Williams (at Burton Albion until 30 June 2025)
MF   England Leo Castledine (at Shrewsbury Town until 30 June 2025)
MF   Brazil Andrey Santos (at Strasbourg until 30 June 2025)
MF   France Lesley Ugochukwu (at Southampton until 30 June 2025)
FW   Albania Armando Broja (at Everton until 30 June 2025)
FW   England Raheem Sterling (at Arsenal until 30 June 2025)
FW   England Ronnie Stutter (at Burton Albion until 30 June 2025)

Other players under contract

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As of 30 August 2024

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
FW   Ivory Coast David Datro Fofana

Development Squad and Academy

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  • Players to have at least one first-team appearance for Chelsea.
As of 29 August 2024

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
32 FW   England Tyrique George
36 FW   Brazil Deivid Washington
DF   England Josh Acheampong
No. Pos. Nation Player
MF   Finland Jimi Tauriainen
MF   England Alex Matos
MF   England Harvey Vale

Notable players

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References

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  1. "Chelsea's first cup final – a century ago". Chelsea FC. 23 April 2015. Archived from the original on 26 August 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  2. "Team History – Introduction". chelseafc.com. Chelsea FC. Archived from the original on 27 May 2011. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
  3. "Premier League Handbook 2020/21" (PDF). Premier League. p. 12. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 September 2020. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  4. "Sky Sports | Football | News | Scolari sacked by Chelsea". Archived from the original on 2009-02-10. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
  5. "Frank Lampard sacked as Chelsea manager - CBBC Newsround". Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  6. "Chelsea appoint Tuchel as manager". BBC Sport. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  7. "Chelsea beat Man City to win Champions League". BBC Sport. Retrieved 2021-06-01.
  8. "Men: Senior". Chelsea F.C. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  9. "Men: On Loan". Chelsea F.C. Archived from the original on 7 August 2022. Retrieved 2 August 2024.