Roman Abramovich has been told he will have to pay a British
record transfer fee to prise Franck Ribery from Bayern Munich.
Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon has already made contact
with Bayern about the
midfielder’s proposed move to Stamford Bridge but a decision will
not be made until the end of Euro 2008.
Ribery has emerged as one of Chelsea’s top three transfer
targets this summer - AC
Milan midfielder Kaka and Liverpool striker Fernando Torres are the
others - but
Chelsea will have to pay in excess of £31million to sign the France
midfielder.
On the managerial front, Luiz Felipe Scolari is now their first
choice, and even though negotiations with Portugal’s coach have not
been concluded the club are still ready to sign more big names.
Chelsea and Portugal defender Paulo Ferreira claimed Scolari
would be a great success. Ferreira said: "He has the experience. He
has been an international manager for six or seven years but before
that he was at a lot of clubs, so we know he can do it. I would
like him."
Bayern Munich’s new coach Jurgen Klinsmann clearly wants to keep
Ribery, voted
German football’s Player of the Year, at the Bundesliga champions
but the midfielder is well aware of Chelsea’s interest.
Despite Bayern’s initial resistance, Chelsea are prepared to pay
more than the £30.8m they spent on Andriy Shevchenko two years
ago.
Ribery, who scored in France’s 1-0 victory over England in a
friendly in March, plays for his country against Romania tonight in
their first group game of the tournament.
He moved to Bayern for £16m last summer on the back of a
successful season with
Marseille - he was voted Player of the Year in France in 2007 - and
he arrives at Euro
2008 in top form.
Kenyon is also in negotiations with Milan about former world
player of the year Kaka, and Chelsea have been encouraged by
Liverpool not rejecting out of hand their initial
approach for Torres.
Although Kaka signed a contract at the San Siro earlier this
year and claimed that he
wanted to be ‘immortalised’ in the same way as Paolo Maldini,
Milan’s failure to qualify for the Champions League has altered his
position.
Milan are ready to sign Didier Drogba, and the Kaka deal could
be linked to that.
Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani said: "Chelsea have
authorised us to begin
negotiations with Drogba. Unfortunately, Chelsea will not sell
Shevchenko."
The absence of injured talisman Drogba was felt by the Ivory
Coast yesterday when
they were surprisingly held to a 0-0 draw in a World Cup qualifier
in Madagascar.
The Chelsea striker missed a second successive match for
his country as a depleted
Ivorian side, also missing Drogba’s clubmate Salomon Kalou, could
only pick up a
point against the Indian Ocean island, whom they were expected to
beat convincingly.
