Chelsea Football Club Training Facility - Case Study Example

Chelsea Training Facility - An Assessment Introduction Chelsea Football club is in need of a football training facility and build football academies. Football Academies are to be set up by some of the football league clubs or Premier League members. These academies should have the best of the staff and the facilities. These academies are expected to coach young students between 7 and 19 years of age. The staff line up will include highly qualified professional coaches, physiotherapists, doctors and teachers. These football academies would produce professional footballers who will play for their club and may end up playing for their country too. In addition to these, the club's first team comprising of 27 players will also be playing here. Currently they practice in Harlington on all days except when they have a match. This has to be transferred to the new site once created, to Hazelwood. The Proposal Chelsea football club proposes to convert the existing golf course in Hazelwood borough into a football training academy. The academy will be the training ground for the 27 first team players in the Chelsea club. In addition to these players, the academy will embark on training youth and children from the neighbourhood schools to build them up into professional footballers. The Chelsea Football Academy will have 12 senior and grass sided grass pitches with one floodlit pitch, one all weather floodlit pitch, ancillary training areas, parking place and required landscaping. An L shaped building will also be created out of the existing one. This will provide seating for 150 spectators on the top floor and also provide for quarters for two staff in the roof space. The first team, comprising of team players aged over 21 years will be using the pitches for their continuous training. There will be a reserve team of 12 players who are in the 19 and 21 years age group. The Academy will also train a youth team comprising of youth in the ages between 17 and 19 years. While the first team and the reserve team train for 6 days a week and they are full time professionals, the youth team trains for 5 days in a week and is primarily students just out of their schools. The school boys are also put through training at a young age of 7 years. However, teams are formed for Under 9, Under 10 and so on till under-16. There will also be Saturday morning training in addition to week day training in the evenings on Tuesday and Thursday. This will number to approximately 120 boys. Once Hazelwood training starts, wards undergoing training in Harlington alone will be transferred to Hazelwood for training. On Sunday mornings, there are regular U9 to U16 matches. These are currently conducted at Cobham and this would continue even after starting training at Hazelwood. There are also the Ladies teams having about 60 senior players and 50 junior players. They train generally in the Feltham Community College and in the Raynes Park High School. Matches are normally played at the Sycob Football Club in Beaconsfield. At the time of making this proposal, the Ladies teams do not have any plans of using the Hazelwood club grounds for this purpose. Factors for the Proposal The following points are observed in favour of the proposal during the analysis of the document: 1. Chelsea FC needs an academy to train and continuously build professional footballers for it. This is line with the Football Association and Football League joint statement issued, reinforcing the idea of creating academies for every professional and Football league club. 2. The Football Academies would be special development centres that will have the best of the facilities and would have to meet very high standards in terms of facilities for both players and well as staff. The centres should be capable of producing students who are not just have technical capability but would be an all round professional. The academies shall have the best coaches and the support of other professionals, viz., physiotherapists, doctors and teachers. 3. These academies shall cater to the needs of all teams viz., under-9, under-10, and so on till under-19. In addition to these, they shall also be a part of the professional training that goes on to the club team. This would mean that the youth will have an opportunity to play with the professionals even when young and will therefore be able to raise their level of game. They will also have the very best pitches and other facilities. 4. The existing golf course in the locality requires extensive drainage works and improvements to make it a satisfactory one. 5. This would provide enough opportunity to the local men and women and disabled to play in well laid pitches. 6. The green belt will continue to exist. There may not be any major change compared what has already been done during the laying of the golf course. The amount of disturbance that is caused by the club might not be more than what is caused by the golf course. On the contrary, the extent of usage by the footballers will be much higher; secondly, there may not be matches that might bring in additional unwanted crowd into the neighbourhood. There may not be any change in the way the golf course works and the football pitch might. 7. The club in the locality will only be to the benefits of the borough rather than actions of any detrimental nature. Though, there will be disturbances in the social life of the people in the neighbourhood, it may not unduly affect the life of the people. On the contrary, the council of the borough can negotiate for larger benefits to the people with the CFC. 8. Chelsea Football Club being a premier league club will be an inspiration to the children in the locality. CFC has already gone to the schools in the locality to pick up promising students and trained them for their growth as football professional. The same commitment will be continued by CFC which will only increase the possibility of identifying and developing promising youth in the locality. 9. Children in the community will be exposed to international players which will kindle the right kind of interest in their young minds and would motivate them. 10. The Environment Statement was prepared by Oxford Brookes University which has assessed the project on the following points: a. Air Quality b. Drainage c. Ecology d. Land Quality and Groundwater e. Landscape and Views f. Noise and Vibration g. Transport The final recommendations submitted by the committee was that though there are issues in every one of the features assessed which is common to every development activity, there are mitigations which were also suggested by the committee. The same need to be implemented to ensure that the ES is properly concurred. All these are positive reasons for the creation of the club training grounds in Hazelwood in lieu of the existing golf course that is not being used extensively. Issues in the proposal The issues in the proposal are mostly public centred and the points raised by them are given below: 1. The green belt in the Hazelwood area will be lost to the training grounds. The golf course has been breathing into the area fresh air which will be lost for the community. 2. This was the place where the public had a right of way and the elderly could have a walk around the place. Now that might not be possible. 3. The height of the pitches will be raised and this would cause excessive discomfort when it rains and could result in flooding of the neighbouring areas. 4. The golf course is being removed and this would mean there will not be any golf course for the locals. 5. Since there will be people who are not locals who will be visiting the pitches, there is a possibility that the crime rate will increase. This also raised a number of personal safety issues in the neighbourhood. The presence of the club will increase the traffic in the locality and this could lead to unsafe road conditions for the school children. All this would result in higher policing in the region and the cost of this will fall on the local residents and tax payers. 6. The current usage of the grounds is by local residents for golfing, for walking their pets and by old people for their morning and evening strolls. However, once the pitches come up, most of the people who will be using the grounds will be outside the locality. The usage of the grounds will not be beneficial to the local residents. 7. Trading of commercial interests with facilities for the public is not a good idea since that would set a precedent which could cause lots of issues in the future and similar requests from other sources might have to be taken with seriousness once this goes through. 8. Movement of construction vehicles and construction activity itself could cause lots of dust and disquiet during the construction. 9. Water usage demanded by CFC will increase the need for water in the locality. Sewerage and the increase in flooding risks in the neighbouring areas will also cause major expenses for the managing council. 10. There will be an increase in pedestrian traffic which could result in a requirement for better policing. All this add up to an increased overall council expense. 11. CFC has allowed about 500 hours of public use and a free way for public walking. But the 500 hours is too small and an exact plan for when this time will be available is unclear. 12. The number of people moving around in the locality will increase. There is a possibility that the number of spectators could go up to the original proposed number of 600 slowly. All this would produce larger noise pollution, air pollution and other interferences to the public life in the borough. 13. The buildings and the structures are against the green belt norms to a certain degree. It is also true that there could be an increase in the number of games the ladies' team might be playing and this venue could become their annual fete. All this would lead to environmental issues that have to be either addressed fully or this project needs to be dropped. All these points raised in the previous section as well as in the current section indicate that the people are affected by the upcoming and new training academy for the youngsters. Points of Interest After the detailed analysis of the proposal and the points raised to and against the proposal, the following points are arrived at: 1. The requirement for football pitches for the purpose of training needs to be made available to football clubs. They form a part of the society and their requirements need to be considered. 2. Though the foot ball fans and their visit to the localities in case of any specific match or tournament could have negative ramifications, they also do have positive impact in the locality. There is more business and commerce. It is also true that the locality should work out methods to take care of the issues related to large number of people visiting the locality. This has to be planned and taken care of rather than avoid these. 3. The CFC has accepted to provide the right of way to the public through the ground in the same way as it is today. There will also be green and additional tree plantation is also planned by CFC. Therefore, the issues of the right of way and the green belt problems are not taking the entire picture into consideration. If CFC could set it right and thereby create a better environment, it could be welcome. CFC needs to plan the timings for free movement and use of the space by the public during and not during the match timings. 4. In a similar vein, if the raising of the pitch heights is to cause flooding in the neighbouring and adjoining areas, the same has to be taken care of by providing appropriate drainage facilities. Proper drainage and sewerage would help in creating better water flow and could make the surroundings better than what it is today. 5. Some of the points are valid objections. Typically, the water consumption of the locality will go up if the requirements of the CFC were to be met. Similarly, there will be larger number of people on the roads and during the days of practice and match. These need to be taken care of and comparing with the gains due to the club the negatives if they are smaller and can be taken care of, can be overruled. The issues raised by the public can be either taken care of or should be properly nullified. Once this is done, then most of the public opinion would have got incorporated in the plan of the project. Conclusion There are positive as well as negative aspects to any project. In this case too, there are a number of positive and many negative side effects which need to be set right before proceeding on the project. It is concluded that the opposing points may all be appropriately taken care of as listed in the previous section and as provided for by the Environment Statement made by the committee members. Once these are carried out, then the negative aspects are ruled out and the club could start its work. Appropriate measures should be taken to avoid pollution during and after construction. Similarly, the other actions contemplated and mentioned in the previous sections need to be executed to make the proposal complete. Read More