HOME GROWN

CHELSEA are facing a nightmare choice over plans for a new stadium.

Blues, bosses believe they have only two options — spend SIX YEARS away from Stamford Bridge while it is redeveloped, or pay over the odds to buy land and build elsewhere.

And there is growing frustration inside the club that little progress has been made since the new owners arrived nearly two years ago.

Chelsea had previously wanted to revamp the current stadium stand by stand, as Liverpool have been doing at Anfield.

In October, the owners of a veterans’ housing block next to Stamford Bridge agreed to sell the club, under new owner Todd Boehly, a plot of land adjacent to the stadium for £80million.

That deal is still to be finalised but sources say club chiefs have now decided that going through separate planning and construction processes and all the associated disruption, would be unworkable.

So if the Blues are determined to stay at the Stamford Bridge site that has been their home since 1905, it would mean demolishing the whole complex and starting again.

The latest estimate is that such a project would take six years, forcing the club to rent a temporary home such as Wembley.

Chelsea have been repeatedly linked with building a new ground on the site of the former Earls Court Exhibition Centre, about a mile from their current stadium.

But just buying the land there would cost at least £500m before a brick was laid.

A new 60,000-seat stadium similar to Tottenham’s new ground would set them back at least £1billion more.

The Chelsea ownership group fronted by Boehly spent £2.5bn buying the club in 2022 and promised £1.75bn of further investment.

Since then, more than £1bn has been spent on players.

But the stadium project has moved much more slowly – Sun.