Chelsea Supporters Trust send clear message to club owners with new campaign

Chelsea supporters have today given a clear mandate for the Chelsea Supporters' Trust (CST) to join the FSA's 'Stop Exploiting Loyalty' campaign.

Chelsea supporters have indicated they do not believe their loyalty is 'understood or appreciated by the club'. In a recent survey conducted by the CST, almost 90% of those who voted instructed the fan group to join the campaign.

The CST will now take action to highlight how supporters are consistently being overlooked by the club. The group will also look to shine a spotlight on how Chelsea are exploiting the loyalty of the die-hard fans.

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Chelsea have recently launched a range of new policies that has added extra expense for the match-going supporters. The club recently introduced a new booking fee per ticket - something that has been widely rejected by fans. As well as this, there was the decrease to concession discounts for cup fixtures.

Also, the club made a decision to introduce a credit system for tickets sold on the ticket exchange rather than the money being sent directly back to the seller's bank account. The club has also introduced a 'priority' membership system, which costs £60 - a 50% price increase for the "most popular" membership.

A spokesperson on behalf of the CST said: "Piece by piece, Chelsea FC is alienating a large part of our core fan base with decisions that will slowly force supporters to pick and choose which games they attend.

"The exploitation of members is also a worry, and we are deeply concerned that the increasingly bad deal that members have will negatively impact our club for generations to come.

"This should be a huge wake-up call to the owners and the senior leadership team within the club. Supporters are rejecting the decisions made by the club and are evidently unhappy with the current path being taken.

"Not only is it ethically wrong to exploit the loyalty of the lifeblood of our club, but it is strategically short-sighted and obliterates any trust or goodwill that had started to be built by recent positive initiatives."

The CST describes the latest changes to ticketing as "really alarming" and something that "cannot be ignored".