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Football London
Football London
Sport
Lewis Pangratiou & Danyal Khan

The first Chelsea home game with reduced capacity revealed as club banned from selling tickets

The freezing of Roman Abramovich's assets has thrown Chelsea's immediate future into doubt.

The government, via the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, has been granted a special licence called "the Russia Regulations" until the end of May.

It's unclear what will happen beyond that date, but for now at least, the club are having to suffer a number of consequences.

As a result of the license that Chelsea are now operating under, only footballing operations are to be undertaken.

This means that a number of things are going to be impacted, with the selling of goods coming under the most restrictions.

So tickets to matches can no longer be sold past this point, with only season ticket holders able to attend games for the foreseeable future.

It also means there will be no away fans that can attend games at Stamford Bridge while the license is currently being held.

The same can be said of merchandising, with all club merchandise currently unable to be sold.

Newcastle United have confirmed that the Blues' next home game at Stamford Bridge has been sold out, therefore suggesting that Sunday's clash with the Magpies will be at full capacity despite the restrictions imposed.

However, with the Blues unable to sell further tickets from this moment in time, their next home games are likely to be played at a reduced capacity, with only season ticket holders permitted to attend.

Chelsea host Brentford on the first weekend of April before playing West Ham on April 23, and providing there's no change of heart from the UK government in that time, both of those games will be played with a reduced amount of supporters in the crowd.

Brentford confirmed that they're waiting for clarification on the situation with a statement on Thursday that read: "In light of the breaking news in relation to Chelsea FC, we are seeking clarification from the Premier League as to what this means for our away ticketing allocation at the match at Stamford Bridge on Saturday 2 April.

"We will confirm what this means for the Bees fans who have already purchased a ticket for this game and what this means for the remaining tickets yet to be allocated to Brentford supporters.

"The planned release of the next batch of away tickets for this match, due to open at 2pm today, Thursday 10 March, will not take place this afternoon as we seek further clarity from the authorities.

"Prior to 10 March we made a contractual commitment to take our entire allocation of 3,000 tickets for this match and will do everything in our power to ensure our full allocation is distributed to Bees fans.

"We will provide a further update as soon as possible."

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