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Following the protest we arranged prior to our home match against Brentford on January 17, we were contacted by one of the directors who sits on the board of Chelsea Football Club. We were told our manifesto had been read by the club, and we were pleased it had been brought to their attention. We were asked about the prospect of meeting face to face with that director in question.  

We saw this as a key opportunity for us to put forward our thoughts and concerns to the club at what is an important and worrying time. We agreed to the meeting, although we were very clear prior to the meeting that our protest itself and any potential future action we may take would not be up for discussion.

The meeting took place in central London in early February. We have taken some time since that meeting to discuss what our next steps should be, and we have decided at this point it is in the best interests of all Chelsea fans to understand the way the club is approaching this matter, and to reveal some details of how the meeting went. This article reflects the group’s recollection and interpretation of the meeting.

As we have previously outlined, we do not have a motivation to uphold a ‘positive relationship’ with the club, as certain other stakeholders may do. Our objective is to scrutinise the club’s activities and hold them to account. 

We wish to state that while we respect and thank the club for reaching out and giving us the chance to meet in person, we feel the attitude conveyed by the club director was symptomatic of the hubris, arrogance and dismissiveness with which the current ownership has run the club since taking over in 2022. On the whole, we do not feel supporters’ concerns are being addressed and based on our meeting, there is little evidence that is going to change in the short-term or long-term future.

Discussion points

Once the meeting began, it became very clear to us early on that the club’s primary motivation for the meeting was to in effect present to us a sales pitch and attempt to talk us round to their way of thinking. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that despite having the highest net spend in the Premier League on new players since BlueCo’s takeover, that the club is struggling to compete financially with Europe’s top clubs. 

The club director spoke very disrespectfully about what was achieved under the previous ownership and of individuals involved in that time. In their view, the current ‘project’ consisting of vast expenditure and player churn is the only means with which we can hope to compete at the elite level at some point in the future. The club’s effort to reduce the wage bill has been seen as a means of offsetting the spend on players so far, and the director was honest about there being no appetite to compete for more established Premier League signings for this reason. 

We were repeatedly given the same small number of player names they see as successes that in some way justify this approach.

After being lectured on this for about 15 minutes, we felt the need to step in and scrutinise what was being said. The meeting took a more confrontational turn when the club director expressed surprise that, in view of the club still being 13 points off the top of the table at the time (this has risen to 19 points at the time of writing), in the fourth season of a ‘transitional period’, fans are not showing more patience.

We calmly explained that we do not see a direction of travel taking us towards seriously competing in the Premier League and Champions League while the current model is in place, and that the lack of proven experience and leadership in the squad will continue to harm us until this issue is addressed. 

The discussion became heated when the director responded by telling us players will mature as they get older and that, to them, it is “fucking obvious we are building one of the best teams in the world.”

One of our group then responded saying we found this a condescending comment. After paying to watch the team home and away for the last four seasons, to have it suggested to us that our route to the top is “fucking obvious” was insulting to our intelligence and we did not understand what this is based on, when we have not seriously competed in the Premier League and Champions League under BlueCo and show little signs that we will do while the current model is in place.

The director denied they were being condescending and told us we have no more right to be upset than they do (despite the fact we are paying fans). We stressed that getting buy-in from the fans is incredibly important and that the director’s opinion was very much in a minority. We expressed to the director that the club brazenly taking an attitude of “we’re right and the rest of the world is wrong” is not helpful. 

Lack of experience

We asked the club why it is that since January 2023, we haven’t signed a single player of age 27 or over, and we wanted to know why there has been no exceptions or balance in the way the squad is being built.

The director appeared to suggest the club would not pursue certain players. According to the director, despite the high amount of spend on players, we can’t afford to compete for the likes of Marc Guehi and Antoine Semenyo. The director did not directly answer when asked if the club has a specific wage cap in place. 

The club is taking the view that due to our revenue being lower than a number of other Premier League and European clubs, signing players with resale value is one of the few levers we have to mitigate against this. We asked that if that is the case, why can’t we look towards growing revenue either by winning competitions which leads to greater prize money, or at least by bringing on board a long-term front-of-shirt sponsor?

We pointed out to the director that if the club is not prepared to pay fair market rates, in terms of wages, for the types of players that will help push the club forward, which our competitors are prepared to pay, then we cannot expect to compete at the top. We argued there must be a reason why no other elite club has tried anything like our current project in approximately 150 years of organised football, and there is not a shred of evidence that this type of approach leads to winning elite league titles.

The director retorted that we also do not have evidence of this approach not working. We responded that the best example we could think of was Arsenal’s earlier years of playing at the Emirates Stadium post-2006, where a focus on developing youth rather than mixing youth with experience never developed into a team that was capable of winning leagues. The director remained confident this will not happen with us.

Management problems

Another issue which was raised was that of the club’s inability to align with managers beyond 12-18 months. The meeting took place about one month after Enzo Maresca’s departure, who at 18 months, is currently the longest-serving manager of the BlueCo era. 

Once again, there was a lack of self-reflection from the director, who even said there is no statistical relationship between managers and results, and that their overall impact is overestimated. We found this very concerning, although the director did at least acknowledge they had hoped to make more progress this season. 

The director also conceded there had been a failing in Maresca’s tenure, with regards to his relationship with the medical staff.

We were also alarmed when the director said the likes of Luis Enrique, who won the Champions League as manager of PSG last season (and whose team beat us 5-2 the night before this article was published), would not have been the right appointment for us when the manager position came up previously.

It was put forward by our representatives that there is a lack of scrutiny being placed on the sporting directors. According to the board director, problems with Maresca stemmed from him not being offered some of the same contract details that the sporting directors have in place..

We do not feel that a small number of more successful signings, given almost the entire squad BlueCo inherited has been replaced, outweighs the lack of sufficient quality in several positions we still see on the pitch. Some of the more recent signings, particularly given we had qualified for the Champions League, were singled out by us as particularly disappointing.

When asked if the current sporting directors are the right people to take the club forward, the director said they could not directly answer the question, but it seems to them that they are.

John Terry

Since our meeting, John Terry has spoken publicly about his disappointment at not being chosen to lead the team as manager on an interim basis following Maresca’s exit from the club. This seemed very timely, as once again, we were alarmed when the director told us they do not think Terry is the right person to be involved with professionally in first-team affairs. This is despite the fact the club employs him as a part-time mentor in the club’s academy.

What next?

The director explained it is likely to take at least a couple more seasons for us to compete at the very top of the table again. The director was unable to put an exact timeline on this. 

The director asked us what the club could do to alleviate our concerns. Our answer was the club could compromise and build a more balanced squad. The director did not seem keen on this idea. The club continues to believe players simply getting older will turn them into winners; we believe football is never this simple, and at some point, leaders need to show them how to win at the elite level.

To be clear, this meeting did nothing to deter us in our efforts to try and bring about change and we were certainly not talked round to the club’s way of thinking. If anything, it has made us more determined to take action against them.

We feel there is a severe lack of self-reflection at the club, and refusing to take others’ points on board would be detrimental to any business, let alone a football club. The director did tell us our comments would be passed on to others at the club though. 

Since that meeting took place, we have noticed UEFA’s report signifying the club reported an English record loss of £355m for the 2024-25 season. While the club has of course tried to play this down, we do not take this as an indication that the decimation of what made the club so successful prior to the 2022 takeover is being justified by a ‘financially sustainable approach’. 

While we accept the director’s point that the quantity of communication with fan groups has improved since BlueCo’s takeover, we pointed out these are short-term wins, and it is ultimately actions that matter more.

The director conceded that our protest was well organised and our arguments were expressed in the right way. We will continue to scrutinise the club’s actions and will do what it takes to help get this club back to where we feel we should be competing. We will not rest until the club is willing to show a form of compromise. 

Up the Chels!

If you attended our 2-0 victory at home to Brentford on January 17, there is every chance you noticed the protest that took place outside the Britannia Gate before the game, organised by the fan group we represent, called NotAProjectCFC.

There is also the possibility this protest movement came to your attention even if you did not attend the match, with the likes of BBC Sport, The Athletic, beIN Sports and Talksport all covering it. The demonstration was also mentioned by Jonathan Pearce in his commentary for Match of the Day on BBC.

An unintended perception

Before we go any further, we want to state we recognise what many of you may be thinking already: “Oh no, it’s those attention-seeking content-creating wallies who are about to preach at me about the merits of a futile protest movement that will never be able to truly unite the fanbase.”

To be clear, we at NotAProjectCFC completely understand why there is a perception about the types of fans who are protesting. While we were pleased with the volume of media coverage the protest generated, and we know for a fact the club hierarchy are concerned about our actions, we would be lying if we said we were not a little disappointed with how the protest came across.

What happened

To take things back a moment, NotAProjectCFC was set up after our 2-2 draw at home to Bournemouth on December 30, two days before Enzo Maresca left the club. While the protest was not in defence of Maresca, as we believe the underlying issues at our club stretch far beyond any manager, we felt it was an opportune moment to attempt to unite the fanbase, following another downturn in form and another managerial exit as a result of a lack of alignment with the club.

We wanted to take lessons from the previous protest that was held before our 4-0 win at home to Southampton in February last year; a protest which we did not organise. We took heed of a frankly cringeworthy and embarrassing clip that emerged on social media prior to that protest, with one of the protestors getting into a financial debate with a former Premier League club owner in Simon Jordan on Talksport.

We published a manifesto when announcing the protest, with our six predominant demands being:

·        Clear Accountability – Football decisions must have clear ownership and consequences for poor outcomes

·        End Micromanagement Culture – Foster a culture of trust and autonomy, not micromanagement that undermines the team

·        Flexibility Over Volume – Reduce youth-heavy recruitment. Add proven experience to rebalance the squad and raise standards among the younger players

·        Proper Manager Support – Qualified managers who are backed and not scapegoated

·        Championship Ambition – A Chelsea that competes seriously in the Premier League and UEFA Champions League

. Board Stability – Consistent leadership at board level with football expertise prioritised

One thing you may notice from the manifesto’s key points is that we did not mention a request for BlueCo to sell the club. To be clear, should a situation ever arise where a bidder comes to the table and offers the right amount of money for Clearlake Capital in particular to sell their stake in the club, then this is more than likely something we would welcome (providing that prospective owner has the right intentions of course).

A choice of two options

However, we do not see calling for BlueCo Out as a realistic aim at this stage. We feel some important self-reflection and a tweak to the model that is in place would be more beneficial. Put simply, in Option A, you would be calling for the immensely complex sale of an asset (for want of a better word) that is worth billions of pounds.

In Option B, you’re asking for some of the vast amounts of money being generated from player sales (close to £300m in the summer 2025 transfer window for example) to go towards bringing in the kind of proven experience that can push this young team towards major honours. That is not withstanding the other points in our manifesto, but investment in experience is something we feel would go a long way to addressing many of the concerns supporters have.

We appreciate that some of those who attended the protest did not share our view and did push the BlueCo Out demands, which is perhaps what led to a distortion of messaging. The situation is akin to the one showed in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, with the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea both sharing a dislike for the Romans, but being torn on how to express their opposition.

We accept a majority of the match-going fanbase have so far not seen joining a protest as a justifiable use of their time. It is worthwhile for us to take on board that some people may not want to stand on a street holding banners and chanting for an hour, especially when those chants descend into meaningless noise about Tottenham Hotspur and former players (this was never our intention). We also recognise many of our match-going fans may not have a presence on social media, where much of our promotion for the protest took place.

Unity is key

I could sit here and write about all the club’s football issues leading to the protest, but the chances are, given you are a reader of a fanzine such as this you probably know all of those.

Now we don’t know about you, but after almost four seasons of this, we’re at the point of feeling desperate to witness a team that we can view with our own eyes and truly say “that’s Chelsea.” The longer the current model is in place, the more deflating the situation becomes, and the harder it is to remain emotionally invested in matches.

But we as a fanbase do not have to accept defeat. We saw with the Super League protest in 2021 that with a unified approach, clubs can recognise the importance of bringing fans on board. Yes, the club may currently be taking an attitude of “we’re right and the rest of the world is wrong”, but it doesn’t have to always be that way.

We firmly believe the right amount of public pressure can create some kind of meaningful change. Whether that’s the other investors in Clearlake recognising the unrest and applying greater scrutiny to Behdad Eghbali, or Eghbali and the sporting directors self-reflecting on where they are going wrong, or changes in the football operation, we can’t say for certain. But do you honestly want to look back on this era in years to come and say you did nothing?

We absolutely support the team

We also recognise an alternate view, put forward previously by the Fan Advisory Board, that fan efforts should be focused on supporting the team, rather than protesting. We do support the team through thick and thin (that’s partially why we did not focus on protesting during a match). But we also feel it would be foolish to be nothing but compliant, without questioning the direction the club is being taken in; this is not, in our view, what constitutes a ‘proper fan.’

Importance of supporter groups

What we are calling for now is a concerted effort among the fanbase to look into ways we can get the message across that the way BlueCo is running the club is not acceptable. The key question is: How do we do that?

We are very aware that when it comes to official supporter groups, they are in a difficult position. We certainly wouldn’t expect a community such as the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust (CST) to effectively become the face of a protest movement, particularly as the group is focused on ensuring proper standards for all the off-pitch issues such as ticketing, away match travel etc.

Fortunately, we can approach this from a different vantage point. There is no benefit to us in holding a relationship with the club, and even as individual fans we have no interest in creating content for commercially-driven social media ventures, as let’s be honest, some of our fans do.

The recent CST fan survey showed 82% of members are either somewhat unconfident or very unconfident Chelsea FC is currently being run in a way that will deliver sustained on-pitch success over the next 3–5 years. The survey also found 90% of members have not very much confidence or no confidence at all in the ownership group’s football-related decision-making.

The CST has previously provided public scrutiny of the club’s on-pitch operations, and the fan survey was very telling. While we would never expect this to be associated with any specific protest action, it was certainly something we saw as very welcome and needed.

What next?

With that in mind, we want to focus on ways we can come together as a fanbase and discuss the types of actions a majority of fans could get behind. We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to meet with a fan group and use the platform the likes of the CST can provide to get our points across and really ascertain what we can do better.

It is important for the club to know that we will continue to seek out every opportunity possible to unify the fanbase in an attempt to create more and more public pressure. This will not cease until we see clear evidence the club is serious about competing at the elite level, and that they are willing to show a form of compromise. This is a club hierarchy that appears to be very concerned about the way it is portrayed in the media, and media coverage is a tool that we can use in equal measure. 

Together, we can do what it takes to get our club back as we know it.

Up the Chels!

This article originally appeared in the March 2026 edition of the CFCUK fanzine