Chaos caused by sanctioning Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has left the club’s summer transfer targets ‘very nervous’ about a move, say football agents.
The Blues are up for sale with potential buyers asked to lodge bids with the merchant bank, the Raine Group, on Friday.
However, uncertainty over the sale, the new owners and speculation about the future of manager Thomas Tuchel has made stars jumpy and looking elsewhere.
‘I would have thought it would have a significant impact on recruitment,’ football agent and sports lawyer, Dan Chapman, told Sportsmail.
‘Players and more likely agents will be very nervous about whether the club will be free of sanctions by [the summer], so investing too much time now on any prospect of a move to Chelsea might be seen as fruitless.’
Before the current crisis took hold, Chelsea had been linked with a string of big names, including West Ham midfielder Declan Rice, Real Madrid defender Eder Militao and Seville centre back, Jules Kounde.
Chelsea’s owner since 2003, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, has been forced to sell and has been heavily sanctioned by the UK government for his links to Vladimir Putin
Chapman said if a sale of the club proceeds quickly, there could yet be a flurry of activity in the summer.
But that will depend upon the new owner’s vision for the club and their strategy in the market, which may be different to the high rolling years of Abramovich.
As happened at Newcastle, any new owners will have to come up to speed on recruitment very quickly, from devising a strategy to finding the players,
‘Realistically, until a sale happens, I would say Chelsea’s recruitment efforts are as frozen as their assets,’ added Chapman, who is a partner at Leathes Prior.
‘And agents will start looking elsewhere for their clients and that could impact Chelsea’s ability to land their primary targets.’
Oligarch owner, Abramovich, was sanctioned last week, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after the UK government…