A South Kensington cultural hotspot is hosting the Beyond Words literature festival again this month. 

Visitors to the London French Institute for the festival’s ninth edition can enjoy talks, readings, debates, book g sessions, films and post-screening discussions.

Well-known authors and artists are ed by new voices at the event, which is designed to promote French literature amongst English speakers.

Festival director and head of the institute’s books and humanities department Jérôme Chevrier said: “Beyond Words festival is not just for people interested in French or , or its culture

“It’s also a opportunity to discover new novels and meet authors.”

Among the new voices are Palestinian author Karim Kattan, who will be presenting his book The Palace on the Higher Hill.

The book has just been published in English and follows his return to his birth village in Palestine. 

Chevrier, whose job is also to encourage English publishers to buy the rights for French books, said: “It’s his first novel and it is magnificent.”

Anne Berest, who attended last year’s edition with her book The Postcard, will be presenting her work Gabriële.

It features the life of her great grandmother and her relationships with artists Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp. 

As the festival title suggests, however, this is not only about books. 

Chevrier said: “We go beyond books, for instance with films adapted from books or plays.” 

Among the films being shown is Hot Milk, featuring Emma Mackey and adapted from the book by Deborah Levy.

Chevrier added: “On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death, I can only recommend the French movie Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, with two actors, one British and one Franco-British, who speak both languages perfectly. 

“It’s a real feel-good movie.”

Acclaimed French author Emmanuel Carrère’s book on Russian writer and political dissident Eduard Limonov’s life has also been adapted to a movie starring Ben Whishaw and will be screened at the insitute’s Ciné Lumière.

Head of marketing and communications Natacha Antolini said: “It’s a really strong film about a fascinating, larger-than-life character who actually existed. 

“It’s directed by [Kirill] Serebrennikov, who’s also known for being a rather provocative director.”

Actor Ralph Fiennes and his sister filmmaker Sophie will attend a question and answer session after the screening of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, featuring the actor committing the poetic masterpiece by memory. 

Victor Hugo’s drawings, currently exhibited the Royal Academy of Arts will be discussed by curator Sarah Lea, Gérard Audinet, director of Victor Hugo houses in Paris and Guernsey, and University of Bristol French literature professor Bradley Stephens. 

Antolini said: “Set in the beautiful art deco library and cinema, the festival aims to attract new audiences with each showing. 

“Its intimate atmosphere, book gs, and post-film discussions offer a fantastic chance to connect with authors.”

Beyond Words runs until 17 May at the London French Institute at 17 Queensberry Place, SW7 2DT.

Tickets cost from £5 with a student discount to £14, depend on the event and which day it is taking place.

For more information on the full festival programme, visit the institute’s website.

Picture credit: Beyond Words Festival

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There is a fear which comes from watching an anthology-style play that the structure will expose some scenes as being stronger and some, detrimentally, as being weaker.

In Joel Tan’s new play, Scenes from a Repatriation, that fear could not be more unfounded as it is an absolute spectacle. 

It covers a string of scenes in the repatriation of a Boddhisattva Guanyin from the British Museum to China, including a boycott by Chinese students in London, negotiations with the British Museum, a Q&A with an art historian, a billionaire’s party, and a police interrogation, the whole play bookended with heart-stopping violence.

The structure means that the cast are constantly multi-roling, shapeshifting in age, physicality, and language. 

There is not one weak performance in any of the dozens of roles all night, but a special mention must go to Aidan Chen, whose various physicalities and consistently note-perfect comic timing were out of this world. 

He metamorphosed from a stuffy museum curator, pointedly blowing his vape across the stage to communicate his delicious ive aggression, to a chill-inducing political prisoner in a windowless room in Hong Kong, and a spoken word artist suffering under the conflict between his Chinese heritage and his sexuality, in a speech suffused with bone-dry irony.

The script demanded a great deal of its six actors, flitting between belly laughs and pin-drop drama at the drop of a hat, and it is a testament to Tan’s writing that it came together with such great success. 

Tan demonstrated some of the best-executed nuancing I can recall, which is just about the highest compliment I can muster.

No character survived his examination, and no character was wholly good or bad.

His writing of arguments was a particular high point, notably during the meeting between a university professor and her student who is calling for a protest against the British Museum. 

Every interruption, interjection, accusation, and explanation told its own story, whether that was a micro-aggression, or a desperate plea to be understood. 

The set design, sound, and lighting were also all utterly faultless.

The Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court is not a large space, but every inch was put to use.

The traverse stage was completely submerged beneath sand, while the screen above the entrance become a museum placard at one point and a window to a spiritual communion at another.

Sitting on the front row, I was utterly absorbed into the set, getting splashed with water, having my bare knee pawed repeatedly by the foot of a particularly flirtatious Chinese dragon, and still found grains of sand in my socks hours later. 

At the far end from the entrance sat the subject of repatriation, the Guanyin statue, which was entirely swaddled in protective material and rope, so that it was only visible as a vague shape.

Despite this, I found myself repeatedly and subconsciously looking towards her throughout the performance, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to see her.

Yet, at the same time, I wanted to check whether her expression had changed in response to the scene in front of her, such was her presence within the show. 

In each scene her meaning shifted, from maternity to homesickness, to patriotism, to separatism, to one last desperate source of hope. 

The show was directed by the experimental duo emma + pj with great inventiveness, particularly considering the comparatively small stage space. 

The directorial choices felt wonderfully effortless throughout, playing to both sides of the traverse seating without appearing to be too overly-considered.

A particular high point came during the police interrogation scene, performed in Chinese, in which English subtitles were displayed on the screen in front of the interrogator.

This created a sense the dialogue had taken a three-dimensional form in the space, and enveloped the audience in the foreign language in an artful and highly effective way.

Besides being thoroughly gripping, the play was also hugely educational, enlightening the audience on both the history of China and the country’s contemporary issues.

At no point did the script slip into preachiness, or treat its audience as idiots – it was a pleasure to learn from it. 

Scenes from a Repatriation is a roaring success for Tan and his team, and a perfect fit for the Royal Court as a bastion of the highest calibre theatrical writing. 

Tickets are available here.

Picture credit: Alex Brenner

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Joel Tan’s latest play, Scenes from a Repatriation, examines questions over who claims cultural artefacts, the politics around stolen art in museums, and the thorny issue of repatriation.

The 37-year-old describes the play, which opens at The Royal Court Theatre on 25 April, as taking a multiple set of perspectives about a statue, the Boddhisattva Guan Yin, as it resides in the British Museum.

Tan came to the UK from Singapore in 2017 for his master’s degree, and it was then he first visited the British Museum. 

He said: “It was a very upsetting experience – I didn’t expect it to be.

“As I started walking through and started to see how these objects, stolen or not, were displayed, these objects of spiritual meaning to different communities, devotional objects, and the callousness of that display, it made me really angry.

“There were a couple of Chinese Buddha artefacts on display in the museum, and that in particular got me really upset.”

When asked about the politics of repatriation and whether his play aimed to wade into the controversy, Joel was quick to rebut the word controversial.

He said: “If anything, the play is inviting people to look beneath the controversy and beneath these polarised ways of conducting these conversations, and reflect on how you might have an emotional relationship to an object, or imagine a spiritual life of these objects that were once objects of devotion.

“I think that because these conversations are so often conducted in such bad faith, they’re rarely about the objects and they’re rarely about the communities that are asking for these objects to be returned.

“They’re often a lot more about preserving a certain version of British history and British institutions, reflecting a desire for a certain kind of outmoded vision of Britain’s role in the world.”

The play imagines a repatriation dispute between the UK and China, exploring the ways in which the relative strength of China’s geopolitical position would shape the narrative differently, in comparison to other repatriation claims. 

Tan described early rehearsals as having taken a very discursive form, as the cast shared new things they had learnt, for instance, about Chinese history, including the opium wars and previous repatriation cases. 

He said: “It’s been hugely educational for all of us because I think this just makes you want to read around it a lot.”

These discussions in turn influenced much of the ensemble work in the play on a visual level. 

The play’s directors are the experimental duo, emma + pj, whose previous work includes Ghosts of the Near Future at the Barbican.

When asked about their rehearsal process, Tan said: “The way that they work, which I really love, is very ‘design lab’. 

“I think, more than other directors I’ve worked with, they put a lot of attention into finding really interesting and complex stage images and how to use the ensemble of actors in a quite beautiful way.

“What feels more satisfying, I think, is that it’s a very big play being stationed in a very small space.

“I think there’s something interesting about their approach, which allows for a small studio space to contain really big feelings and images and ideas.”

Tan and emma + pj, along with the design team, held a series of in-depth research and development sessions in the winter, before the cast had even been decided, in order to establish the design elements of the play. 

The Royal Court, where the play will run until 24 May, is a theatre that is widely seen as being the home of new writing, championing fresh theatrical works all year round. 

Tan said: “I’ve been in conversation with the building for quite a number of years now about this play, so on the one hand it feels like there’s a comfort to it because it feels like this building has held this play for quite a while, like it feels like the culmination of a long process.

“It doesn’t feel overwhelming in that sense, but what is kind of overwhelming, I guess, is to be reminded of the lineage of plays that have gone on here, which can be freaky because it’s such a rich tradition and some of my favourite playwrights and the best plays I’ve ever seen, I’ve seen in this building.

“So it just feels kind of scary, but at the same time quite wonderful to be part of their soup.”

Joel has a history of satirical writing, with his previous work including G*d is a Woman, a play about the fictional censorship of an Ariana Grande concert in Singapore, and an adaptation of Molière’s classic barbed comedy, Tartuffe, which, although it retained its original 17^th Century French setting, was staged to critique a very specific strand of conservative Christian religiosity in Singapore. 

Molière’s original staging of Tartuffe was widely censored by the religious authorities of the time, and sparked a debate, which continues to rage today, about whether satire should be didactic and corrective in its aims. 

On this quarrel, Joel said: “I suppose there is a certain didacticism to satire insofar as it’s very often speaking some kind of petulant truth to power.”

However he went on to express his ambivalence about whether theatre has a duty to be didactic, or whether it should leave complex questions in the air.

Tan would never be so black-and-white as to proscribe what reaction he’d like from his audience , however he does hope that people approach museum artefacts differently as a result of seeing his play.

Tan said: “When I started doing all this research and started writing this play, I started looking at objects on display very differently and began to see them as repositories of more than just what we were being told on the little placards, that they are not just points of reference of some long-gone civilisation.

“They also hold in them very contemporary histories and human stories.

“If you could write a play about each object, they would be completely different plays, and maybe if there’s something that I hope happens as a result of watching this play, we could take this slightly more extended sense of what it means to look at these objects with us.”

Scenes from a Repatriation is running at the Royal Court Theatre from 25 April until 24 May.

Tickets are available via The Royal Court Theatre website.

Picture credit: Alex Brenner

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Bin lorries will run on vegetable oil instead of diesel in an emissions-cutting trial across Kensington and Chelsea.

Kensington and Chelsea Council announced 44 of the borough’s bin lorries will be taking part, using hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), an eco-friendly diesel alternative made from cooking oils and animal fats which is then treated with hydrogen to make fuel.

The initiative is expected to slash the carbon emissions from the Council’s fleet by up to 90%, saving 300 tonnes of carbon from being released into the atmosphere annually.

Kensington and Chelsea Council lead member for net zero Cllr Johnny Thalassites said: “Achieving net zero is increasingly difficult for councils who are rightly prioritising keeping essential services running for residents.

“By trialling hydrotreated vegetable oil in place of a polluting fuel like diesel, we are innovating without compromising service”

The council confirmed that the move will not increase spending for the borough as this sustainable alternative is roughly the same price as the diesel currently used.

A large portion of the HVO set to be used will be sourced from reclaimed oils, including those used in the catering industry.

Thalassites said: “Next time you’re enjoying Friday night fish and chips, the oil used to fry your meal may well end up fuelling our waste collection vehicles.”

HVO is classified as a biofuel as it is made from renewable sources rather than fossil fuels and is fully interchangeable with standard diesel, allowing for a seamless transition without changes to vehicles.

The switch is part of the council’s four-year plan to create a greener, safer and fairer borough.

Under this plan, the council set aside £14million to speed up net zero commitments for their vehicles and buildings, with a further £8million allocated to achieve greater energy efficiency in the borough’s schools.

Feature image is copyright-free from Unsplash.com

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Thomas Tuchel has won 11 trophies during his managerial career, but his popularity varies drastically for Chelsea, Bayern Munich, and Paris Saint-Germain fans.

The new England boss is most well-known for his 2021 Champions League win for the Blues, and despite being sacked by Chelsea owner Todd Boehly, the German is revered in West London.

However, Tuchel was a polarising figure for the French and German giants, and his reputation is harder to decipher.

Speaking to prominent fans of all three clubs, it is clear Tuchel will need to warm to England fans through his charisma, while getting the Three Lions playing the winning football he’s produced for the last decade.

Chelsea fan, journalist, and owner of CFCnewspage Nathan Gissing said: “I think I can speak on behalf of every Chelsea fan when I say that those 19 months were some of the best ever.

“And after he was the voice of the club during Roman Abramovich’s sanctions, it was devastating to see him leave.”

As well as the Champions League final victory, where Tuchel masterminded a 1-0 win over Premier League rivals Manchester City, the 51-year-old won the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup, as well as reaching two more major finals. 

It’s this knack for knockout football which Gissing highlighted as Tuchel’s main strength.

He said: “You can’t get a better manager than Tuchel for knockout football.

“If you’re not solid defensively, you don’t stand a chance, and you can expect a tough game when you come up against Thomas.

“England men haven’t won a trophy since 1966. Football is about winning, and Tuchel’s a winner.

“If I was a gambling man, I’d put good money on England winning the World Cup.”

Tuchel’s most recent club appointment was at Bayern, where he won the 2022-23 Bundesliga title but was sacked less than a year later after disappointing results. 

FC Bayern UK Fan Club deputy manager and online Chafic Kaedbey had sympathy for Tuchel given Bayern’s surprise sacking of Julian Nagelsmann, but blamed the German’s personality for his downfall.

Kaedbey said: “Tuchel wasn’t very popular, not because of his Borussia Dortmund connections, but his personality. He’s a difficult person to deal with.

“If you look throughout his history, he’s been repulsive over that time. He’s a very tactical person, but Bayern is more of a family.

“Bayern have always focused on possession, but this was not Tuchel’s style. As a result, we saw some of the worst games ever for Bayern.

“I’ve never seen them lack a reaction to bad games so often.

“But it was not fair for him in the beginning, as the fans viewed Nagelsmann’s dismissal as unfair.”

Tuchel had public fallouts with squad stalwarts Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka, before troubles surfaced with Dayot Upamecano, Kim Min-Jae, and Matias De Ligt, which went down poorly with the German media.

However, Gissing saw this Bayern failure differently. 

He said: “I saw no problems with Tuchel at Chelsea, everyone loved him including the ownership, Petr Cech, and the players.

“At Bayern, there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and it caused a lot of unnecessary drama.

“He prefers English media to the German media, and given it’s just pure coaching, we’ll see the best of Thomas.”

Arguably Tuchel’s most successful spell came in , where he won a domestic treble with PSG in 2019, and five trophies in total. 

A Champions League final defeat to future team Bayern was a regret for Tuchel, but PSG Club London Hugo Coll and Thomas were thankful for Tuchel’s time in the French capital.

Coll said: “He’s the only coach that managed to bring us to the Champions League final, the dream for us PSG fans.

“He was not easy to deal with because of his strong character, but that can be a quality because you need a coach that can raise his voice against some types of players, like Neymar and Kylian Mbappé.

“Maybe that’s what England needs to manage all the talents that Southgate couldn’t.”

Thomas also believes international football might suit Tuchel.

He said: “He wanted full power over gs, and he struggled to communicate with the journalists, but international football will work for him.

“He can select the players he wants without worrying about transfers. He was a master at exploiting the opponent’s weaknesses, and playing to our strengths, which is what England needs.

“They wanted someone with more character. This is Thomas Tuchel.”

While Tuchel will work hard to keep the media onside about his past character problems, he might find it harder to overcome the foreign manager narrative.

Only native managers have won the World Cup before, and the German is already facing question marks over his port.

Kaedbey said: “It’s a risk, and time will tell, and since he’s not English, the pressure and controversy has already started from the media.

Gissing echoed this when he said: “There’ll be pressure because he’s not English. I can already see the headlines if he loses a game, ‘Why do we appoint a German manager?’.

“But he’s the best available, and there aren’t any world-class English managers at the moment.”

Despite the mixed opinions on Thomas Tuchel’s time across Europe, it appears the fan bases have a mutual appreciation for what he could do for England’s 2026 World Cup dreams.

Picture credit: Used from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons 3.0 license

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More than 250 people broke their fast during an Open Iftar hosted in the historic V&A South Kensington Museum last week.

The community event, hosted by the London-based charity Ramadan Tent Project, invited people from all faiths and none to come together and eat Iftar in the iconic Raphael Gallery.

Ramadan is the Islamic holy month where Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, refraining from food or drink until they eat the evening meal called Iftar.

Founder and CEO of Ramadan Tent Project Omar Salha said: “Having Iftar here in the V&A creates history, reimagines spaces to see how faith plays an important part, and celebrates our identity.

“This is about the millions of Muslims across the UK who are proud to be British and living in Britain where faith is not looked down upon but, on the contrary, is celebrated and valued.”

As the call to prayer echoed through the beautiful Raphel Gallery, guests broke their fasts with dates and water before moving to an open space to perform the evening prayer. 

Open Iftar volunteer team lead Sophia Malik said holding an Iftar at the V&A “pushes so many doors open for Muslims and it allows non-Muslims to get a taste for our faith and who we really are”.

Guests booked free tickets to experience warm meals whilst listening to speeches from V&A Museum curators, the Jordanian Ambassador to the UK, the Ambassador to Ireland and Iceland, and an Islamic Relief spokesperson.

“It’s been amazing that everyone is coming together and talking to new people in such a beautiful and iconic British space,” said Aurelia Finch, the director of the UK-MENA Network.

In its 12th year running, the festival theme this year is ‘Connection’, aiming to increase harmony, foster belonging, and turn strangers into friends. 

The charity is hosting 20 Open Iftars across 12 UK cities’ most prominent venues – including Windsor Castle, Shakespeare’s Globe, and Belfast City Hall – with the finale event to be hosted at Trafalgar Square at the end of the month.

Featured image shows the event at the V&A Museum. Picture: Sumaiya Motara

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Sonia Bompastor believes there are better performances to come from Chelsea Women after she claimed her first trophy with the club in Saturday’s Subway League Cup final.

Chelsea beat Manchester City 2-1 in the showpiece game at Pride Park, the first of four meetings between the sides in ten days as two legs of a Women’s Champions League quarter-final and a Women’s Super League showdown between them loom large.

But despite the Blues claiming the League Cup for the first time in three years, the woman who guided French side Lyon to domestic and European glory in three years at the helm was adamant her side can step up their level of performance as they seek the quadruple.

Bompastor said: “I think, first of all, maybe when I said not an excellent performance, I think the performance was good enough for us to win. 

“At least we created some chances and could score two goals, which is a lot when you play a final, especially against City.

“But I know this team has more than we showed.”

The win over City, who had former manager Nick Cushing back in the dugout after Gareth Taylor was sacked in the week leading up to the final, saw Chelsea continue their unbeaten record in the 2024-25 season.

The only teams to take points off them so far this campaign have been Leicester City and Brighton & Hove Albion. However, Chelsea’s manager is not prioritising this record.

Bompastor said: “For me, that’s not the main thing. At one point, maybe we’ll lose a game in the season. 

“I think the most crucial thing is ensuring we achieve our goals. I think, going into the rest of the games until the end of the season, it will be challenging to stay unbeaten. 

“We just take game by game.  We know we are in a decisive moment of the season, and every game will be necessary. This is our mindset. 

 “We just want to ensure we grab as many trophies as possible at the end, knowing it will be challenging.”

Bompastor was in no doubt clinching victory in the first of four back-to-back meetings with City gives them a slight edge, but did not see it as crucial to deciding the outcome of those games.

The Chelsea boss said: “Psychologically, winning the first one is really important.

“Of course, it won’t be the central element in the next game, but in of confidence, that’s positive. 

“Even in of recovery, you always recover better when you win the games. So, that’s a significant advantage, but it won’t be enough. 

“I said it’s essential in this rare situation when you have to face the same team four times in 12 days to take it game by game – and especially when it’s different competitions.

“The approach will be slightly different because it’s two legs in the Champions League.”

Cushing reiterated the same thoughts about the psychology of winning the next three games against each other.

Manchester City’s interim manager said: “It’s about the belief that when you fall on the wrong side of a result, you can fall on the right side, and that’s by defending your box a lot better. 

“I’ve seen enough to know that we can be competitive in the next three games. I have the belief that this team can win, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.

“And if watching that game back doesn’t give you the belief that you can go and win, we did enough to win the game. We had many, many moments and I was proud of that.”

Both managers made their views clear about the pitch conditions at Pride Park not being up to standard for a cup final.

Bompastor said: “It is a shame to have this pitch for a final, especially when you expect in England to have the best groundsmen and pitches in the world.

”I’m not sure if it was a men’s final game it would be the same.

”We just need to make sure we have the best facilities and grass to play the games.”

Cushing added: “Obviously would like the pitch to be a little bit better, right? But it is what it is.

”For me, it’s more about how do we make sure that we can win. I’m sure the pitch will be better at [Manchester City’s] Joie Stadium.”

While the players shared the same perspective about the championship sides stadium was “cut up: and “bobbly”.

Erin Cuthbert said to BBC Sport: “I don’t think this surface was fit for a final to be honest with you.”

Millie Bright said: “It’s an amazing stadium but when you come to a final you do expect a lot more quality from the pitch.

“It is disappointing, it’s massive game, a massive cup final and as you can see from the state of the pitch.

”It disrupts the game a little bit as well.”

Picture credit: Beth Payne

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Sonia Bompastor claimed her first trophy as Chelsea Women manager as the Blues finally regained the Subway League Cup with a 2-1 victory over Manchester City.

Mayra Ramirez opened the scoring for Chelsea before City got one back from Aoba Fujino, but an own goal by City’s Yui Hasegawa saw Bompastor’s side triumph in Saturday’s final at Derby’s Pride Park.

Despite being finalists every year for the past five years, the League Cup has eluded Chelsea over the past three following their back-to-back triumphs in 2020 and 2021, but this victory kickstarted their hunt for the quadruple this season against a team they will meet three more times in the next ten days.

While it was a first taste of glory as Chelsea boss for Bompastor, opposite number Nick Cushing was previously city manager between 2013 and 2020, and found himself back in the dugout following the recent departure of Gareth Taylor.

The game started with a period of silence for Poppy Atkinson, a young aspiring women’s footballer who ed away earlier this month – an act which was echoed around the women’s game over the weekend.

Despite the game being played on a muddy surface barely befitting a showpiece final, it was all City on the attack for the first five minutes.

However, Chelsea managed to resist everything their rivals threw at them and then took the lead in the eigth minute after Lauren James played the ball into the middle of the box to put Ramirez one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and she finished by rounding the City stopper and tapping in after her initial shot was blocked.

An intervention from VAR, being used for the first time in this competition along with goal-line technology, to check for a possible offside led to the goal standing, although City were soon back on the offensive.

Shaw had several opportunities for City but was unable to capitalise on them, while Ramirez went close to adding to Chelsea’s tally before the half-time whistle sounded.

The second half again started with City being on the front foot, yet Chelsea were able to carve out opportunities too and saw Lucy Bronze booked after the referee deemed her to have dived in the box against her former club.

City finally got their reward in the 64th minute when Fujino rifled into the top corner with a powerful shot which left Chelsea goalkeeper Hannah Hampton with no chance.

Four minutes later, Hampton kept Chelsea in the game when made herself large enough to block Bunny Shaw’s shot in front of the goal, and Bompastor’s decision to introduce Aggie Beever-Jones and Maika Hamano in place of Catarina Macario and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd soon after paid off.

The two Chelsea subs made a clear impact on the game and it was Beever-Jones who provided the cross aimed at Hamano, following good build-up play by Bronze, which was turned into her own net by City’s Hasegawa.

Cushing rang the changes as well in a bid to get City back into the contest, but there was no denying Chelsea as they went on to claim the League Cup for a third time.

The teams will quickly renew acquaintances when they meet in Wednesday’s Women’s Champions League quarter-final first leg, followed by the second leg next week which sandwiches Sunday’s Women’s Super League meeting between them in Manchester.

Picture credit: Free to use from Unsplash

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Chelsea have missed out on a potential £400m over the last 15 years by releasing future stars from their academy too early.

Failing to give professional contracts to the likes of Jamal Musiala, Declan Rice, and Michael Olise has deprived the club of millions in pure profit sales, on top of missing out on quality players, data from Transfermarkt has shown.

The lost revenue is a blow to the West London club, who have used academy sales extensively to alleviate the pressure of Premier League Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

However, several prominent Chelsea journalists believe the famous Cobham academy remains a huge asset to the club.

Chelsea FC journalist Nathan Gissing said: “It’s inevitable that you’re going to have players slip through cracks. 

“It shouldn’t happen, but hindsight is a beautiful thing. Players peak at different times, and sometimes the environment just isn’t right.

“However, Chelsea should have given the players they scouted more of a chance.”

These ten names were all released for free, or a small compensation fee, and have gone on to reach a value of more £10m.

Eight of those have also commanded transfer fees since, which total more than £270m.

Rice was released at 14 as he was too small, before West Ham picked him up and sold him for almost £100m to Chelsea’s rivals Arsenal.

Olise also left at 14, ing Manchester City’s youth setup, before Crystal Palace eventually sold him for over £40m.

Dominic Solanke and Rhian Brewster both left to Liverpool, who made handy profits on the pair, while Eddie Nketiah ed Arsenal’s academy after being told he was too small before being sold by the Gunners for £25m.

Musiala, commanding an eye-watering current value of £117m, left London for Bayern Munich for a mixture of family reasons, Brexit, and seeing a better path into the first team in Bavaria.

And it’s this issue that journalist and Chelsea academy expert Felix Johnston thinks is Chelsea’s biggest concern with Cobham.

He said: “You can’t always predict how players are going to turn out, but they’ve been prioritising too many international talents rather than showing academy players a pathway.

“Little moments that seem insignificant, such as playing five minutes in a cup, can mean a lot. It can show a pathway to players, and that’s been a missed opportunity.

“But you can’t keep everyone. And sometimes it’s just a result of your success.”

The danger for Chelsea is their youngsters start looking away from the Blues earlier as they anticipate difficulties in getting first-team minutes, and this may already be happening.

Rio Ngumoha and Ryan McAidoo were two highly touted talents at Cobham who both left to Premier League rivals Liverpool and Manchester City respectively in 2024.

If these players keep leaving for free or nominal fees, then not only will Chelsea have to replace them with expensive foreign youth, but they can also expect that missed talent figure of £400m to keep rising.

Johnston said: “Just because a Brazilian footballer did a rainbow flick doesn’t mean they need to be signed for £50m.

“Obviously, that’s not what Chelsea are doing, but some gs they’ve made are pretty clearly not the best young players.”

Gissing echoed this, saying: “g all these kids in the same positions as our academy players must be disheartening for them.”

Players like Deivid Washington, a Brazilian brought from Santos for £17m, disrupt pathways for youngsters, meaning they look elsewhere for minutes, and possibly onto bigger things.

And this isn’t exclusive to academy players, with Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, and Mohamed Salah all examples of big name players finding their best form after leaving west London.

Hence, Chelsea have often been accused of selling its prospects too soon, and this graph shows how some academy players were let go before they reached their peak transfer value.

Marc Guehi almost doubled his value after leaving Chelsea for Palace, but after Chelsea won the Champions League in 2021, it was always going to be difficult for Geuhi to break into the squad.

Callum Hudson-Odoi is almost worth seven times the amount the Blues let him go for, while Nathan Ake also nearly doubled his value after leaving.

While Mason Mount, Conor Gallagher, and Ian Maatsen were all arguably sold for impressive fees, Johnston was keen to highlight Lewis Hall, Omari Hutchinson, and Tino Livramento as illustrations of Chelsea’s recent academy mismanagement. 

He said: “Hutchinson had the perfect loan at Ipswich, and yet he was always going to be sold. It sends a message that loans are just for marketing, which doesn’t set the best precedent.”

Hall and Livramento were sold in the midst of then new owner Todd Boehly’s spending spree, who has exploited pure profit and contract amortisation rules to spend €1.3bn since he took over in May 2022.

Hall was sold shortly after g a seven-year contract, and his €33m fee makes up part of Chelsea’s €478.5m generated from academy sales over the last decade, a figure larger than Arsenal’s total for all player sales in the same period.

Although this has allowed for several big players to like Cole Palmer, who likely wouldn’t have done so without this PSR exploit, not everyone is in favour of this strategy. 

“I see it as an indictment of a badly run club if you need to sell your academy players with the volume and desperation of Chelsea,” said Johnston. “There has to be a middle ground.” 

Gissing added: “With so many FFP rules now, I think you’ve got to balance the books somehow. The club deep down don’t want to sell, but they have to.”

Chelsea’s sister club Strasbourg has given more opportunities for players to stay contracted to Chelsea while playing senior football.

The UEFA Conference League has also provided minutes for youngsters Tyrique George and Josh Acheampong, showing that despite the bloated squad, Cobham can still produce first-team squad .

Johnston said: “It’s still one of, if not the best academies in England, and one of the best academies in the world. 

“Everyone at Cobham has a common goal, winning, but it’s a family setup in the academy.

“There’s a standard of excellence in every single department, giving players a very well-rounded footballing education, which is why you see Cobham graduates prospering all over the world.” 

Cobham’s success largely comes from Neil Bath and Jim Fraser, who spent over 30 years in West London, overseeing five consecutive FA Youth Cups from 2014-18, before leaving in July last year.

So will Chelsea continue to sell up talent to fund foreign players? Or will they shift back to the academy focus that brought success to Frank Lampard and Thomas Tuchel under then owner Roman Abramovich?

Johnston said: “Next summer will be telling. Will the players that have broken through this season be treated equally and fairly, or will they be sold yet again?

“I hope Chelsea have turned the tide.”

Featured image credit: Andrewi via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 licence

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A new study has revealed that Tottenham Hotspur are the most expensive team in the Premier League to .

Spurs fans spend an average of almost £2,000 per year on season tickets and merchandise, and the team sits 14th in the league after 24 games played.

A study by Compare.bet found that Spurs have the most expensive merchandise in the Premier League, costing an average total of £205.60 for the team’s home and away kits.  

Compare.bet lead writer Steven McQuillan said: “Dedicated football fans are why this sport is so unique, but these costly prices may be off-putting for many fans.  

“From soaring season ticket prices to the rising cost of merchandise and TV sports subscriptions, this study highlights that ing your favourite football team is becoming a luxury many fans can no longer afford.

“It has become a common criticism that the Premier League is starting to price out local fans to make as much profit as possible.

“This means that local fans can no longer bear to pay the extortionate prices to see the team they have ed all their lives.”

The study analysed various factors to determine the ranking, including the costs of hip, merchandise, and a season ticket, plus the price for a pie and a pint at each team’s stadium.

Newcastle United fans spend an average of £100 on away games due to their distance from the stadiums.

Fulham has the highest hip price, with fans paying £50 per year, and a season ticket for 2023/24 costing £3,000.

West Ham United’s London Stadium home has the most expensive pie for the 2024/25 season at £5.

Chelsea’s average season ticket, meanwhile, sets fans back £879.29 per year.

For many teams, such as Brentford, being a member is the only way to access Premier League tickets, which gives fans priority access before tickets go on general sale.

However, AFC Bournemouth, the second-smallest ground in the league, is the only club without a hip scheme and instead, ers get priority based on their previous booking history.

The Crystal Palace scheme is the cheapest club hip at £25.

McQuillan said: “With the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, being a football fan in 2024 shouldn’t be a luxury. 

“Hopefully, we will see a decline in these prices in future years, but for now, it’s clear that these teams need to address this issue.”

Picture credit: Free to use from Cover Images

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