One of the longest-running catering partnerships in English football is over. Levy UK, the sports and entertainment arm of Compass Group, has confirmed that its 20-year relationship with Chelsea FC has come to an end, with the club opting “to move in a different direction”, as reported by The Caterer.
From the start of the 2025/26 season, catering at Stamford Bridge and Kingsmeadow will be run by Legends/ASM Global under a new multi-year partnership covering matchdays, non-matchdays, conference and events catering – plus the training and development of the club’s food & beverage and hospitality teams.
What was Levy actually running at Chelsea?
Quite a lot. Under the outgoing contract, Levy UK served fans at Stamford Bridge and Kingsmeadow (home of Chelsea Women and the academy sides), and also catered for players and staff at the Cobham training ground. Since 2021, Compass-backed street food operator Kerb had been supplying traders into Levy’s venues as well.
That makes this one of the bigger contract handovers in recent Premier League memory – it isn’t just the kiosks and bars changing hands, but premium hospitality, player dining and the year-round conference and events business too.
Who are Legends/ASM Global?
If you work UK event days, you may already know them without realising it. Legends/ASM Global already operates UK venues including the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, OVO Arena Wembley and the Olympia conference venue in Hammersmith. The Chelsea deal is their first Premier League stadium catering contract of this scale in the UK – a significant statement of intent.
What this means if you work (or want to work) matchdays at Stamford Bridge
This is the part that matters for readers of this site. When a stadium catering contract changes hands, three things typically happen:
- Existing staff are usually offered transfer or re-engagement. Casual matchday workers aren’t always covered by TUPE in the same way permanent staff are, but incoming operators almost always need the experienced local workforce – expect Legends/ASM Global to run onboarding and re-registration for the existing Stamford Bridge casual pool over the summer.
- A hiring wave before the season opener. New operators want their own supervisors, team leaders and premium hospitality staff in place for the first home fixture. If you’re in London and looking for matchday work, the weeks before the 2025/26 season starts are the moment to get an application in.
- Your Levy registration still has value – just not at Chelsea. One of the advantages of working for a multi-venue operator is the breadth of the contract. Levy still runs hospitality at Wembley, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Twickenham and the Etihad Campus, among others. Losing Chelsea shrinks the Levy London portfolio, but existing Levy casuals can keep picking up shifts across those venues. (More on how multi-venue operator contracts work in our guide to how matchday hiring works.)
The bigger picture
Contract churn like this is normal in stadium hospitality – and it’s exactly why we always tell applicants to apply to the operator, not the club. The badge above the door stays the same; the company that actually pays the matchday workforce can change over a single summer.
We’ll update our Stamford Bridge profile and operator pages as the Legends/ASM Global operation takes shape ahead of the new season.
Source: The Caterer, 1 August 2025.
