Roman Abramovich won't call all the shots over Chelsea transfers, says Jose Mourinho

 
Newly re-appointed Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho reacts during a news conference at Stamford Bridge stadium in London. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett-
James Olley11 June 2013

Jose Mourinho insists owner Roman Abramovich will not solely dictate Chelsea’s transfer policy and claims outsiders should not be “obsessed” by the idea of a power struggle at the club.

Although the 50-year-old denied his departure from Stamford Bridge in 2007 was due to a breakdown in his relationship with Abramovich — a club statement released at the time said exactly that — it has been widely suggested the Russian forced through several signings including Andriy Shevchenko against Mourinho’s wishes.

Abramovich was reportedly also the driving force behind Chelsea’s £50million signing of Fernando Torres in January 2011 but, in keeping with his themes of stability and meritocracy at yesterday’s unveiling press conference, Mourinho stated decisions will be taken by committee, just as at other clubs.

“The conditions are just natural ones,” he said. “It’s nothing from the other world. There are decisions that belong to the manager in every club.

“I don’t believe in any club in the world somebody tells the manager you have to train at 9am and not 10am, or that somebody says training has to be two hours and not one hour 50 mins, or you have to play that guy instead of the other one. That’s never happened in my career. I always get respectful owners and presidents.

“When it comes to selling and buying, I’ve never decided by myself. They are decisions that belong to everybody. But there’s a financial situation and I’m not responsible for that.

“When you buy and sell, you have a group of people who must work together and I’ve done that at every club with different structures.

“At Inter there was Mr [Massimo] Moratti, the owner and the technical directors. At Real, they had Jose Angel Sanchez as a CEO and a president.

“In Porto, everything was direct with the president. I’ve never had this kind of situation and sometimes you look almost obsessed with this control — it never exists in the way you want to put it. Nobody arrives in the club and says, I sell him and him and buy him or him . . . with your money!”

As Standard Sport reported last week, Mourinho has been told he will not be given a blank cheque to rebuild the team. Although one big transfer is possible — Edinson Cavani from Napoli remains a target — Mourinho will primarily focus on promoting younger players who have spent time on loan.

He said: “Imagine if you bring back [Romelu] Lukaku, [Kevin] de Bruyne and perhaps [Tomas] Kalas, who is at Vitesse. The one or two that we may buy are complements.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in