Chelsea given green light to stage home games at Twickenham while they redevelop Stamford Bridge
RFU boss Bill Sweeney wants to stage Chelsea games at Twickenham whilst the Premier League outfit redevelop Stamford Bridge.
Sweeney is desperate to maximise revenue from the 82,000 capacity home of English rugby and would be open to the Blues moving in temporarily.
Chelsea want to upgrade the Bridge to take 60,000 instead of the current 42,000 but would need a temporary home when the builders move in.
Spurs played at Wembley from 2017 to 2019 while they built the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and hosting Chelsea for a couple of seasons would give the RFU a massive cash windfall.
Sweeney insists the ground is licensed to play Premier League but fears local council Richmond could kibosh the move.
Sweeney said: “It would be a big financial number. The licence would allow it to happen and there have been conversations previously about possible Premier League clubs coming here.
“Richmond council is more concerned in terms of impact on local residents, numbers of fans and so on they’re a little bit more sensitive.
“It may depend on which club it is. I know they would definitely have a conversation about that though.”
Sweeney recently threatened to move England’s base from Twickenham to the Midlands , with Milton Keynes an option, because of a row over Beyonce concerts.
Twickenham could not offer the American superstar the six gigs she is playing at Spurs this summer because of restrictions on the number of non-sports events it can hold.
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Currently they are limited to three per year but Sweeney is confident that will be raised, boosting the RFU coffers, and they will stay put.
He added: “We’re making really progress with Richmond. The conversations with them have been positive, it’s a cooperative process.
“They see the value that we bring to the area and they understand why we need to have more non-rugby events when you compare it to Tottenham, to Wembley, the O2, they can see why we need those non-rugby events to make the thing viable.
“We’ve just completed the survey of local residents and we had the split between five minutes from the stadium and 15 minutes from the stadium.
“I think the figure was, and it was much bigger than we were expecting, 75 per cent support in terms of do you support the stadium hosting more or a lot of non-rugby events.
“I’m confident it’s going in the right direction.”
Shifting England away from Twickenham would have been a bombshell move and plans are in place for it to have a £600m facelift.
“We’ve always said our preference was to remain here,” Sweeney said.
“Not just for cultural reasons and the history.
“Hospitality and ticketing are 50 per cent of our revenue and from a geographical point of view this is a really important part of the country to be in.”