Bridge to the Euro elite? Chelsea's stadium name up for grabs

With a dozen official sponsors, you may think Chelsea have extracted every possible penny from the club's name. But that's only about a third of what they want, and a corporate charm offensive is underway.

With a warming smoothness, and flavour notes including 'pencil eraser, cucumber rind and margarine' Grand Royal is a brand that doesn't exactly dance around the tongues of British whisky aficionados.

But for five years, from 2012 to 2017, it was Chelsea Football Club's official tipple of choice... in Myanmar.

That deal has now lapsed, but it is exactly the sort of partnership Chelsea covet, and one which is about to become far more commonplace at the club in the very near future.

Chelsea FC is for sale – the name, not the club.

And as the club's new Commercial Director Chris Townsend recently told the Financial Times, no opportunity will be overlooked in the attempt to keep up with the Manchester Uniteds of the industry.

Figures from accountancy firm Deloitte reveal that in the 2015-16 season, £334.6m poured into Stamford Bridge via corporate sponsorship deals.

Some of the names are familiar to fans: Nike will pay £60m a year, over the next 15 years, to manufacture and brand the team strip; while tyre manufacturers Yokohama fork-out £50m a year to have their name on it.

Carabao, green gloop in a can that is somewhat of an acquired taste, contribute a further £10m for the training tops.

And then there are other brands whose contributions, either in cash or in kind, effectively subsidise the seats supporters occupy on a matchday: Singha beer, Sure deodorant, Beats Electronics among them (yes Dr Dre did, in part, fund the signing of Danny Drinkwater).

But Chelsea want more.

Townsend's stated aim is to make the Blues 'a top four or five club in Europe' in terms of revenues – they are presently eighth.

And he wants that to happen in the next seven to ten years, doubling commercial income to £640m a year.

Putting that into context, table-topping United presently bring in £515.3m per season, from 60-odd sponsors.

These include: Chi, the official soft drinks partner in Nigeria; and You-C1000, official isotonic drinks partner in Indonesia.

Chelsea, unlikely ever to fully catch up with the mega global footballing brand that is Manchester United, are looking at between 30 and 35 deals in all.

So Townsend's job, like that of Christian Purslow before him, involves jet-setting all over the world, chasing sponsorship deals to boost the club's coffers.

Some, particularly perhaps the old school of fans among them, may find all this branding and commercial talk a bit of a stain on what used to be the beautiful game.

But take that away and the club would need to find, at today's prices, an extra £8,031 of revenue per seat at Stamford Bridge.

Not all are crazy about the taste of Singha or Carabao, but most will surely be able to stomach their presence in the ground rather than cough-up the differential.

And that takes us on to possibly the most controversial sponsorship of the lot.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Stamford Bridge naming rights, attached to the new-build stadium when it materialises, are on the agenda.

There has been well-sourced talk about it for some time, but Townsend has now explicitly put it in the public domain: linking it in with shirt sponsorship to create what could in theory be known as 'The Yokohama Stadium at Stamford Bridge' (other corporate sponsors are available).

Maybe it jars a little when you say it, but remember that the aim is to double that per-seat sponsorship take.

So is that a price worth paying? We'll be right back, after the commercial break...