RB Salzburg boss says Chelsea will not be poaching their sporting director, despite rumours | OneFootball

Yesterday we reported on the apparently imminent signing of Christoph Freund as Chelsea’s new sporting director.

The rumours had rattled around for a while, and had reached the point where we were convinced it was happening. Insiders like Fabrizio Romano were calling it a done deal, pretty much.

But today a strong statement from his club’s managing director has claimed that there’s no move coming, reminding reporters that Freund has just signed a new contract.

“I can definitely rule that out, neither Chelsea nor Christoph Freund spoke to me or the club management about something like that,” said Stephan Reiter in quotes picked up by the Metro.

“Christoph recently signed a contract with us until 2026, which applies to him as well as to players, managers or coaches.”

This is all rather reminiscent of the move for Marc Cucurella earlier in the summer. Brighton put out a statement to deny the rumours that a deal had been agreed – yet within 48 hours, a deal was agreed.

This is clubs not wanting to get pushed around, and quite right too. As in that case, we think this will be done eventually, but Chelsea will have to pay up.