Chelsea fans ruin Roman Abramovich’s bid to buy Stamford Bridge

Posted Friday, October 28, 2011 by The Sun

Chelsea fans ruin Roman Abramovich’s bid to buy Stamford Bridge
BRIDGE OF SIGHS ... Chelsea owner Abramovich

CHELSEA and Roman Abramovich are reeling after their own fans stopped them buying the freehold to Stamford Bridge.
Furious supporters turned on chairman Bruce Buck and chief executive Ron Gourlay at a stormy meeting before voting to reject the club's proposals to re-purchase the club's stadium in order to help the search for a new ground.

Buck and Gourlay will now have to go back to Abramovich with their tails between their legs to sort out a new strategy after they spectacularly misjudged the mood of the Chelsea Pitch Owners (CPO).

But Buck urged everyone to rally around the club ahead of Saturday's massive London derby against Arsenal.

Buck said: "Roman is disappointed but respects that the Chelsea Pitch Owners have spoken.

"I don't view this as us against you or we against they. We are all Chelsea fans.

"I can only hope that on Saturday we can all get together, support the club and beat the c**p out of Arsenal."

But for more than three hours, it was Buck, Gourlay and the CPO board who took a good kicking.

Tim Rolls, of the Say No CPO campaign, said: "What we have done is to make the club and CPO think more about the proposal and the way it was handled.

"It was a PR disaster from start to finish.

"The club does not understand the fans."

The CPO was founded in 1993 to buy the freehold of Stamford Bridge when developers were threatening to bulldoze Chelsea's home.

The Blues want to buy it back so they can sell it for redevelopment to fund any move to a new ground.

But fans who stumped up to buy shares to save the club 18 years ago were spitting with rage that 20 unknown investors had bought 2,000 new shares AFTER Chelsea made their announcement on October 3.

Yet it soon became clear Chelsea would not secure the 75 per cent of votes they needed, polling just 61.6 per cent.

Gourlay said: "We thought we had a very good proposal. We had hoped to come out with a win."