No excuses from Chelsea despite sanctions

Thomas Tuchel says Chelsea will not make “excuses” despite severe restrictions placed on the club as a result of UK sanctions targeting Russian owner Roman Abramovich.

The Premier League club are operating under a special licence after the British government last week froze the assets of Abramovich as part of a set of punitive measures following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The licence is designed to prevent Chelsea and by extension billionaire Abramovich from generating new revenue.

Chelsea are banned from selling tickets and cannot spend more than £20,000 ($26,000) per match on travel costs, though the Blues are urgently lobbying ministers for a much-needed hike.

German boss Tuchel admitted Chelsea had been forced to make adjustments.

“There are restrictions and we have to deal with it,” he said at his pre-match press conference on Tuesday. “There are adjustments in our amount of staff who are travelling, how many rooms we have in hotels, how we arrive at matches.

He added,”As long as we have shirts, as long as we are ‘alive’, as long as we are a team and we arrive with our players we will be competitive and we will fight hard for our success because we owe it to the people who support us.”

Chelsea have also asked for their FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough to be played behind closed doors in the interests of fairness after they were blocked from selling tickets for the match.