There is a fan theory circulating that Chelsea’s introduction of the ‘CFC LDN’ branding this season is tied to a potential loophole that could see them circumvent Chelsea Pitch Owners.

It’s worth remembering that Chelsea Pitch Owners (CPO) owns a company called Chelsea Stadium Limited (CSL), which owns the freehold of the club’s Stamford Bridge stadium and the very name Chelsea FC. As part of a long-standing agreement, it leases the ground to Chelsea for a nominal rental income. In 1997, the club and CSL signed a 199-year lease, so it won’t be expiring anytime soon.

The outcome of this is that should Chelsea seek to move stadium, they would either need to surrender the name ‘Chelsea FC’ to CPO or obtain its permission to go to a new venue. It ultimately means a potential move is much more complicated than just knocking down the Bridge or upping sticks to a new site. Chelsea would need a majority of more than 75 per cent in any CPO vote on moving to a new ground.

A fun conspiracy theory, yes, but one not substantiated by anyone at the club — and also dispelled by Sean Jones KC, a leading lawyer and board member of CPO.

Throughout this season, the CFC LDN branding has been visible at Stamford Bridge, on the club’s website, in promotional material, and on their social media pages.

The new logo, which features a lion, was designed by Uncommon Creative Studio and trademarked last summer before it started to appear in the club’s marketing campaigns and on their official online store.

🌏 We are heading to Thailand with Gianfranco Zola!

Bangkok will host our final The Famous CFC experience this season, proudly presented by @DiscoverASR. 🇹🇭

— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) March 5, 2025

Chelsea sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, have maintained throughout that the club’s crest is not going to be replaced by this new badge.

Instead, they are viewing the lion icon as a way to diversify their brand, emphasising the fact they are based in London to people who may not know where Chelsea actually is, and reach new audiences outside the United Kingdom.

It is why, for example, the promotional material on their website for former Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s visit to Shanghai, China, later this month features the new artwork, along with slogans “THE FAMOUS CFC” and “FROM LONDON TO THE WORLD”. 

Chelsea first approached Uncommon in December 2023 and commissioned the company to design and create the icon two months later.

“The brief was to create a new ownable visual identity for the club, which could bring the club into the modern era, exporting its ‘London-ness’, and make it stand out from all other football clubs,” Nils Leonard, Uncommon’s co-founder, tells The Athletic.

There is a good chance that UK-based football supporters know Chelsea is an area of London, so CFC LDN isn’t targeted at them. It is aimed at supporters in Asia and America, for example, who may have heard of Chelsea but won’t necessarily know the club play in England’s capital city.

But why is being associated with London so important?

The new branding outside Stamford Bridge (James Fearn/Getty Images)

“This may be particularly aimed at the American market, especially ahead of the Club World Cup (being played there this summer) and men’s World Cup (which the U.S. co-hosts with Canada and Mexico next year),” explains Richard Busby, chief executive of BDS Sponsorship.

“In Serie A the top division of Italian club football), for example, most of the clubs are named after the place where they are located. In La Liga (the Spanish equivalent), a few teams don’t have the name of where they are, and you wouldn’t necessarily know where they are based because the name doesn’t tell you.

“It is the same in the UK. So, within reason, if I am visiting London from overseas and wanted to see a team and vaguely know where I am going, then Chelsea’s branding makes sense.”

Although the initial reporting on the CFC LDN branding indicated it was designed to coincide with the club’s 120th anniversary, those inside the club are not characterising it in that manner, noting that it would have been rolled out this week as opposed to when this season’s home kit was launched in July.

When Uncommon unveiled the design, it described the finished article as a “new icon to show Chelsea as London’s true club”, something many other London-based clubs established long before the Stamford Bridge side probably raised an eyebrow at.

Uncommon’s questionable slogan aside, Leonard explained how the thought process that goes into designing a new icon is more nuanced than just creating a logo.

“There is also a huge amount of work involved in looking at the real estate and media that any design thinking will play a part in,” Leonard added. “Screens are a huge part of any club story these days, and how a design system might move and travel on screens. The stadium, programme, hoarding and physical experience are a huge part of what it means to support a club, so whatever we did had to shine there.”

Chelsea’s trademark is in place until 2034. The categories in which it has been registered mean it can be licensed to pretty much anything that can be sold, whether that is a belt buckle, soap-bubble wands or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other digital assets.

“Even at an early stage, Chelsea would register as many classes as they want, even if they’re not planning to launch products into those classes because it would just it would stop anyone else doing it,” Natasha Dyson, the founder of Blonde Sheep Licensing, explains.

“There is a law that if they haven’t launched a product within a certain period of time, then they would lose those rights. But that’s a couple of years down the line.”

As for the costs associated with trademarking a logo, Dyson notes they can start “anywhere from £150” and the more classes, the bigger the cost. Registering it in different markets, such as Asia and the United States, also increases the price.

“They would likely initially register it in the UK and Europe, which can be done within a couple of months,” Dyson adds. “Once they’ve done that, they would probably trademark it in Asia, but they can do that through the same trademark lawyer.”

Now they own the trademark, Chelsea, in Dyson’s words, “control” who they sell the licence to, adding how they “probably have a strategy in terms of the type of products they wanted to develop” before rolling them out.

Chelsea will play in the first edition of the revamped and expanded Club World Cup in the U.S. this summer (Brennan Asplen/Getty Images)

Busby, however, is sceptical when asked if the branding can help boost the club’s income from international markets.

“I can’t believe the commercial benefits are that significant compared to the costs associated with redesigning the logo, which will be a lot of money,” Busby says, estimating that bill for such a project, including the market research, “could conceivably be six figures”.

“I do get it as a principle for overseas visitors who want tickets to watch Chelsea, but I would suspect the cost against the return would be very small,” he adds.

Although Busby is dubious about the logo’s ability to drive significant interest from overseas visitors, he is more receptive to the idea of the club generating income via merchandise sales with the CFC LDN branding.

“If you think about selling merchandise, then they could make a lot of money from this,” Busby claims. “And maybe they think putting London on the merchandise will increase sales.”

As Chelsea celebrate their 120th anniversary, now more than ever they are leaning into the fact they are located in London.

In what is a crowded market for Premier League football clubs, with Fulham just down the road, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur to the north, West Ham United and Crystal Palace to the east and south and Brentford to the west, Chelsea are trying to stand out.

Their aim is to speak to an international audience. They want casual football fans to associate Chelsea with London, hence Uncommon’s ‘London’s true club’, copy line.

Whether it makes any difference or not is too early to say, but Chelsea’s use of their home city so prominently in marketing material and other commercial streams is not going to slow down anytime soon.

If anything, it will only increase.

(Top photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)