Former Chelsea defender condemns tone deaf ticket statement

Graeme Le Saux criticised his former club on social media

Former Chelsea defender Graeme Le Saux has criticised the club's recent statement in which they requested for their FA Cup quarter final against Middlesbrough to be played behind closed doors. Due to the sanctions imposed on Chelsea's outgoing owner Roman Abramovich, the Blues have been given a special license to allow them to continue "football-related activities." However, despite the license, Chelsea are still heavily restricted in their operations and are unable to sell match tickets. As a result, the club released a statement on Tuesday criticising the decision and questioned the lack of "sporting integrity" from the fans. The statement has since received widespread backlash from several people including an unnamed senior government source who said that "Chelsea should spend less time worrying about having a few thousand fans at one game, and focus on moving their club into the hands of someone who isn't linked to a warmonger." https://twitter.com/FootballJOE/status/1503725037622341636 Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson also issued a response to Chelsea's call for the game to be played in an empty stadium, highlighting that "for Chelsea to seek to invoke sporting "integrity" as reason for the game being played behind closed doors is ironic in the extreme." is Le Saux, who made 230 appearances for the west London club across two spells was another one of those to condemn the statement. In a post on social medial the 50-year-old claimed that he 'couldn't think of a more embarrassing statement' to have been written by the club. Le Saux said: "I can’t think of a more embarrassing statement to come out of the club that I played for for 12yrs. Either ignorant or arrogant. I am confident it doesn’t represent the feelings of the coaching and playing staff." https://twitter.com/graemelesaux14/status/1503752872919506952?s=20&t=Gqy8krVCELX7Mhs_ldKVlQ Chelsea currently remain in talks with the government to renegotiate some of the sanctions imposed on the club. Related links:

• Middlesbrough slam ‘bizarre’ request from Chelsea to play behind closed doors
• Government condemn ‘threatening’ statement from Chelsea on FA Cup away tickets
• Chelsea request FA Cup tie to be played behind closed doors for ‘sporting integrity’