Chelsea
will face Australian side Perth Glory in a pre-season friendly ahead of the
2018-19 season, the Premier League club confirmed on Thursday.
The Blues will return to Western Australian city for the first time since
1974 to face the A-League side at their new Optus Stadium on July 23.
The multi-purpose stadium, which holds up to 65,000, recently hosted the
fifth and final one-day international between Australia and England, which
the tourists won by 12 runs.
Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck said: "We will be taking a strong squad to Perth
as we prepare for the 2018/19 season.
"Of course, we have a long way to go in the current campaign but we can
already look forward to an exciting pre-season.
"Optus Stadium will be a fantastic and fitting venue for us to visit our
passionate Australian supporters once more and take part in an entertaining
match against Perth Glory."
Perth Glory chief executive Peter Filopoulos added: "This international
friendly between Perth Glory and Chelsea, is a huge coup for Western
Australian and football fans throughout Australia and Asia.
"It is also an enormous opportunity for our club to play in front of a large
attendance at the new, world class Optus Stadium in its rectangular
configuration against a prestigious international football club in Chelsea.
"The scheduling of this game is ideally placed and the club will be using it
as a platform from which to build its pre-season preparations for the 2018
FFA Cup and 2018/19 Hyundai A-League season."
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