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Chelsea: Empty seats at Stamford Bridge for Arsenal clash as sanctions begin to hit home games

Chelsea's attendance at Stamford Bridge has been hit for the first time since sanctions were placed against owner Roman Abramovich.

The club are unable to sell match tickets because of sanctions placed against their owner last month following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This marks the first time that the sanction will directly impact a home game, as tickets for matches before now had already been sold.

That means just 25,000 season ticket holders will attend Wednesday's game in a stadium that holds more than 40,000.

The large amount of empty seats were clearly visible as the match between the two London rivals got underway.