But Ron Gourlay said the name Stamford Bridge would feature in any sponsorship deal.
In his first major interview, with the club's official television station, since succeeding Peter Kenyon last month, Gourlay said balancing the need to raise additional revenue while retaining the heritage of the club was 'achievable'.
'We understand that this is a sensitive issue for our fans and that is why we would keep the name Stamford Bridge in any deal,' he said, in a week when maligned Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley announced the renaming of St James' Park for the rest of the season to sportsdirect.com@St James' Park Stadium.
Gourlay explained that he was not willing to let the Blues slip behind their English and European rivals in revenue generation due to their inability to either redevelop Stamford Bridge, capacity 42,055, or move to a new stadium.
'Those possibilities are not open to Chelsea for the foreseeable future because of the restrictions in expanding our stadium and the issues around finding a new site, so that means we have to be creative and look at our sponsorship architecture and see if we can create new value and new opportunities that keeps us competitive,' he told Chelsea TV.
'Our stadium does very well at the moment in competing with the bigger, and in some cases newer, stadia of our rivals. But they have more possibilities in the long run than we do. We cannot sell any more tickets to Chelsea fans as we sell out virtually every match within our limited capacity.
'The match day experience at Stamford Bridge and the relationship with our fans has improved greatly through initiatives such as our flexible ticketing policy for all cup matches, the freezing of non-hospitality ticket prices for the last four seasons for Premier League matches and subsidised or free travel to a significant number of away games.
'But we need to keep evolving and move the business forward to support the football side and the club generally. This is a potentially realistic way of doing that.'
Gourlay added that talks over a new contract had opened with fit-again midfielder Joe Cole, who turns 28 on Sunday.
The former West Ham star is the last of Chelsea's established stars to commit his future to the club.
In his first major interview, with the club's official television station, since succeeding Peter Kenyon last month, Gourlay said balancing the need to raise additional revenue while retaining the heritage of the club was 'achievable'.
'We understand that this is a sensitive issue for our fans and that is why we would keep the name Stamford Bridge in any deal,' he said, in a week when maligned Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley announced the renaming of St James' Park for the rest of the season to sportsdirect.com@St James' Park Stadium.
Gourlay explained that he was not willing to let the Blues slip behind their English and European rivals in revenue generation due to their inability to either redevelop Stamford Bridge, capacity 42,055, or move to a new stadium.
'Those possibilities are not open to Chelsea for the foreseeable future because of the restrictions in expanding our stadium and the issues around finding a new site, so that means we have to be creative and look at our sponsorship architecture and see if we can create new value and new opportunities that keeps us competitive,' he told Chelsea TV.
'Our stadium does very well at the moment in competing with the bigger, and in some cases newer, stadia of our rivals. But they have more possibilities in the long run than we do. We cannot sell any more tickets to Chelsea fans as we sell out virtually every match within our limited capacity.
'The match day experience at Stamford Bridge and the relationship with our fans has improved greatly through initiatives such as our flexible ticketing policy for all cup matches, the freezing of non-hospitality ticket prices for the last four seasons for Premier League matches and subsidised or free travel to a significant number of away games.
'But we need to keep evolving and move the business forward to support the football side and the club generally. This is a potentially realistic way of doing that.'
Gourlay added that talks over a new contract had opened with fit-again midfielder Joe Cole, who turns 28 on Sunday.
The former West Ham star is the last of Chelsea's established stars to commit his future to the club.
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