How long will it take Chelsea to travel to Lille by bus?
FT Desk
- Updated: 13 Mar 2022 18:32 GMT
- 3 min read
Chelsea were plunged into an unprecedented crisis this week due to the sanctions put in place by the UK government against oligarch owner Roman Abramovich.
Abramovich has had his assets frozen because of his alleged links with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is presently mounting an invasion on Ukraine.
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As a result of these sanctions, Chelsea have been severely affected financially and operationally.
Chelsea will not be able to make any transfers – both incoming and outgoing - while these sanctions are in place. It also means that they will not be able to renew the contracts of Andreas Christensen, Antonio Rudiger and Cesar Azpilicueta.
Fans will not be able to buy tickets for games, with only season ticket holders gaining access to Stamford Bridge. Merchandise sales have also been banned.
One curious sanction placed on Chelsea is that a limit has been placed on how much they can spend on away travel.
Their budget is currently capped at £20,000 per game. This immediately raised fears over how Chelsea can possibly afford to fly their whole squad and staff to Lille next week for the Champions League match.
Chelsea lead Lille 2-0 from the first leg of their Champions League last-16 clash and are set to travel to France for the second leg on Wednesday.
Their fears worsened when it was reported that several club credit cards have been frozen, with Barclaycard said to have suspended Chelsea’s account for fear of breaching government regulations.
What is the distance between London and Lille?
This led to some reports that Chelsea would have to travel to Lille by road and ferry in order to stay within their £20,000 budget as flying or going on the Eurostar would be too expensive.
The distance between London and Lille is 171.8 miles (276 kilometres).
Chelsea would have to travel to the Channel Tunnel by road before picking up the ferry over the English Channel to Calais.
From Calais, the Chelsea team would then get back onto the road for the remaining 68.3 miles (109km).
The total time it would take Chelsea to get to Lille by bus would be around four hours.
However, it has been reported over the past couple of days in the English media that Chelsea have already paid for their plane travel for all away games this season, so they won’t be forced to take a gruelling bus journey.
This was confirmed after Sunday’s 1-0 win over Newcastle by Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, who joked that if they can’t travel by plane he will drive the bus!
"My last information is we have a plane and we can go by plane and come back by plane. If not we go by train, if not by bus, if not I will drive a seven-seater.”
