‘Absolutely fuming’ – Chelsea fans accuse Blues of exploitation ahead of Jose Mourinho’s return to Stamford Bridge in Champions League

Tim Rolls, ex-chair of the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust (CST), echoed the fury.

“There’s a number of issues around the short notice, the increase in pricing, the removal of concession pricing,” he said. “By removing the concession pricing without any advance notice, they’ve just increased prices for youngsters, for over-66s. They probably are happy to alienate groups of season-ticket holders, especially the older ones, because they think that they can sell tickets – especially for this type of game – to one-offs. People who are happy to pay more because of the Mourinho effect. And it will inevitably have an effect.”

Many suspect the categorisation was no coincidence, though Johnstone disagrees.

“They’d have done it anyway,” he claimed. “They don’t want oiks like me who struggle to get £800 for a season ticket. We’re no good to them. Why’s the atmosphere so rubbish? Because they’re filling it up with tourists. If people want to come and see Chelsea, I welcome them from anywhere in the world. It must be great. They’d rather have those people paying £70, £80, £90 for an ordinary ticket and going and spending £300 in the megastore and coming once in their life. People like me, at the bottom of the food chain, we’re not going to have anything left.”