The west London club have been pursuing the Fifa World
Player of the Year all summer in the hope of finally persuading him
to swap Milan for London and were confident that the appointment as
Chelsea coach of Kaka's compatriot and the man who handed him his
Brazil debut as a 19 year old, Luiz Felipe Scolari, would help to
convince him of the merits of such a move.
However, the Milanese club have been stubborn in their
insistence that the playmaker is not for sale at any price,
although at the same time they have indicated to Chelsea that they
may be willing to do business in the future.
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is said to be willing to pay
whatever it takes to seal his dream transfer and has requisitioned
several leading agents in order to make the deal happen.
Standing in his way at present, though, is the fact that Kaka
put pen to paper on a new five-year contract worth £6.5 million per
year after tax only last April, a deal that increases in value
every year until 2013.
If the player was to sign, therefore, he would need to be
offered a wage packet in excess of the £135,000 a week that both
club captain John Terry and Frank Lampard, after his new deal this
week, earn at Chelsea.
Just last month, Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani stated
that his club had turned down an "enormous offer" from Chelsea for
Kaka, something that has not been denied by his counterpart at
Stamford Bridge, Peter Kenyon, and Chelsea would certainly need to
break the current record for a transfer fee, the £48m that Real
Madrid paid to secure the services of Zinedine Zidane from Juventus
in 2001, in order to land the player.
But Kaka, despite the fact that Milan are not competing in this
season's European Cup following their surprise fifth-placed finish
in Serie A last time out, would never agitate for a transfer
himself and would only move if Milan gave it the go-ahead.
A similar strategy was used by Chelsea to lure the former
darling of San Siro, Andriy Shevchenko, from Milan, a move nobody
thought possible at the time, only for three years of continual
talks to finally yield their rewards with his eventual transfer to
the Bridge in 2006.
That means that Chelsea have only one remaining target before
the transfer window closes on Aug 31, Kaka's compatriot Robinho.
The club had a £19.7m bid turned down by Madrid earlier in the
week, with the Spanish champions wanting nearer the £30m mark, but
Scolari is said to be happy with his existing squad, although
Chelsea still hold out hope of bringing the playmaker to the club
after the Brazil international's contract talks with Madrid broke
down.
"He's the type of player who brings some difference to Chelsea
and if we can bring that one off then he would add to the squad,"
Kenyon said.
"If it doesn't, then we're not going to win or lose because of
Robinho."