A non league side have took to make dig at Chelsea over reports of the Blues having to face a ’10-hour bus journey’ to Middlesbrough.
As part of the sanctions placed upon the club’s Russian owner Roman Abramovich last week, Chelsea have been issued with a £20,000 spending limit on transport costs for away games.
While they will be able to take a pre-paid flight to and from Lille for their Champions League clash on Wednesday, they won’t be afforded such luxury at the weekend.
Non league side make dig at Chelsea over ’10-hour bus journey’ to Middlesbrough
The club will head to the Riverside Stadium to take on Championship outfit Middlesbrough in the FA Cup this Saturday and, with air travel being too expensive for the to tier outfit, Thomas Tuchel’s side will have to make their way via the road like pretty much every other club in the country do.
Reports claim that Chelsea ‘fear’ they will be forced to undertake a gruelling 10-hour round-trip from their Cobham training base in Surrey by bus instead.
The west Londoners were slammed by Middlesbrough for their request to have their tie played behind closed doors and now another side have took aim at the European Champions.
That is Leamington FC of the National League North who went straight to Twitter to mock Chelsea over their travel arrangements as they prepare for an epic coach journey of their own.
In reply to the Blues, the non league outfit, who make the nine-hour round-trip up north to face Blyth Spartans, posted: “They do say you haven’t experienced football properly without a 7am leave for Blyth Spartans away… Pretty similar, just we don’t have a coach with kitchens and individual TVs – we do have USB chargers sometimes though.”
I mean our players do also have day jobs alongside all this travelling…
— Leamington FC ⚽️🇺🇦 (@LeamingtonFC) March 15, 2022
Speaking ahead of the club’s Champions League clash, Chelsea boss Tuchel talked about his concerns over the impact the makeshift travel arrangements would have on the wellbeing of his players. The German stated: “It is difficult to arrange things in the best way possible for the FA Cup, but we will deal with it.
“It isn’t about luxury and bling-bling. This is just a pro level of sports, where we play with two days between matches with our opponent having four days between matches and we arrive with the possibilities of injuries. For that, it is better to arrive with a plane rather than a bus.”
On the Trip to Middlesbrough, Tuchel said: “We have to deal with it. We have some new things to talk about, like how to arrive at games. These are things that are normally taken care of by the organisation team and team management team. But now we have to stick together, have our heads together, give our opinions and find solutions on matters like arriving at matches.
“This was not the case before so there are some subjects we are not used to discussing, but no problem we discuss it. We spend some extra time, extra hours, to give our thoughts and find solutions.
“We want to find solutions because, as hard as we want to play the match tomorrow and make it to the next round, we to play the match on Saturday in the FA Cup and make it into the next round.”
Leamington aren’t the only team to stick the boot into Chelsea, as American outfit South Georgia Tormenta FC shared maps showing away day round-trips as long as 16 hours. A Twitter post read: “Premier League clubs couldn’t handle the gruelling travel demands of USL League One. These are standard away days. Just different gravy over here.”
Irish club Finn Harps also had their say, simply tweeting “cry me a river”, and it’s had over 19,000 likes within 24 hours.
Due to concerns over travelling by bus instead of plane, Chelsea player Kai Havertz has even offered to pay out of his own pocket in order to foot the bill for an airfare.
He declared: “I would pay, no problem. That’s not a big deal for us. To come to the games is the most important.”
SEE MORE: Fans hit out at Chelsea’s FA Cup request for game against Middlesbrough
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