Chelsea announce stadium naming rights sale - but won’t do a Newcastle

Chelsea's new chief executive, Ron Gourlay, has announced that the club is willing to enter discussions with sponsors to sell the naming rights to Stamford Bridge, the club's home for more than 100 years.

Gourlay, who replaced Peter Kenyon as chief executive of the Premier League leaders at the start of November, insists that the club's heritage will be respected as part of any deal - in stark contrast to the debacle that has led to Newcastle United's St James' Park being re-christened the sportsdirect @ stjames'park stadium.

"Retaining the heritage of the stadium is paramount to considering such a move but we think that it is achievable and on that basis we would enter the discussions over naming rights with the right partner for Chelsea," Gourlay told Chelsea TV on Thursday.

"We understand that this is a sensitive issue for our fans and that is why we would keep the name Stamford Bridge in any deal. What we are not prepared to happen, and I am sure our fans will appreciate this, is allow our rival clubs in England and Europe to gain a competitive advantage over us in terms of the revenue they can generate, through either expanding capacity of their existing stadia or moving to a new stadium and then invest that in their team or club.

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"Those possibilities are not open to Chelsea for the foreseeable future because of the restrictions in expanding our stadium and the issues around finding a new site, so that means we have to be creative and look at our sponsorship architecture and see if we can create new value and new opportunities that keeps us competitive."

Chelsea's matchday revenues from the 2007/08 season - the latest season for which full figures are available - totalled £74.5 million. At the club's London rivals Arsenal, which moved to a new stadium sponsored by airline Emirates in 2006, the figure was £94.6 million, according to accountants Deloitte.

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