Chelsea deny pricing claims

Chelsea have denied reports that the extra money raised from television revenue will be used to give pay rises to players rather than to reduce ticket prices.

Each Barclays Premiership club will get a minimum £30million when the new television deal comes into force next season, with the champions set to pocket £50million. It has been claimed that Blues chief executive Peter Kenyon, speaking at a fans forum, had refused to earmark the money to cut the cost of tickets.

But a statement issued by Chelsea insisted no decision had been made over next year's price policy, reading: "The reports this morning are a total misinterpretation of what was said in the fans forum. No decision has yet been made over ticket prices for next season and Chelsea representatives were very clear on this from the outset."

The statement added: "Any suggestion to the contrary is totally wrong."

Meanwhile, Chelsea launched the first football-branded channel on internet site YouTube.

The channel will include Chelsea news, archive footage and contributions from fans.

Kenyon said: "We are delighted to work with YouTube.

"Chelsea is the first football club to move into what is clearly one of the fastest growing new media platforms.

"This will allow us to offer our fans exciting Chelsea content in a very unique way, as well as an opportunity to reach a whole new audience."