Chelsea chief: Drogba talks ongoing
Reuters - Thursday 10 May 2012, 17:03
Chelsea will discuss a
contract extension with Ivorian striker Didier Drogba after next
week's Champions League final, the Premier League club's chief
executive Ron Gourlay said on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters at the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix,
Gourlay also said staying at the West London club's current
ground remained Chelsea's preferred option despite a bid for the
landmark Battersea Power Station site.
Gourlay was at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya to launch
the FA Cup winners' new partnership with the Swiss-based Sauber
team.
Asked about the future of Drogba, who has been at Chelsea
for eight years and wants to stay despite being linked earlier
this season with a move to China, Gourlay said talks were
continuing.
"We have been discussing things with Didier," he said.
"Everybody knows he's in the last year of his contract with
Chelsea. Ongoing conversations have been held with Didier since
January and before.
"Didier loves Chelsea football club, we all love him and we
will continue to be in dialogue and we will discuss things after
we finish the Champions League final next week."
Drogba, 34, scored in Chelsea's 2-1 Cup final win over
Liverpool last weekend to become the first player to score in
four finals.
He will be hoping to bring home the Champions League trophy
from Munich next week when they play Bayern in the Germans' home
stadium.
BATTERSEA BID
The striker has rediscovered his form under caretaker coach
Roberto Di Matteo, who replaced Andre Villas-Boas in March and
whose own future also remains uncertain.
Gourlay said that too would be discussed after the Champions
league final.
"We said we would wait until the end of the season and we'd
review the situation. That's exactly where we are today and
we'll see where we go from there. But he's done a fantastic job
and so have the players."
Chelsea, owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, are
bidding for the derelict Battersea Power Station site on the
south bank of the Thames in what might be a traumatic move for
many of their fans.
Their current capacity is just under 42,000 and they could
build a 60,000-seater stadium in Battersea, with the iconic four
white chimney stacks incorporated into it, but Gourlay said that
was still only an option.
"The club has outgrown Stamford Bridge," he said. "We'd
ideally like to stay... we've been looking to extend the stadium
to 55,000-60,000.
"That really doesn't appear economically viable at this
stage and would cause us a number of planning issues. But we are
still looking at overcoming that if we possibly can. The
preferred option is to stay at Stamford Bridge."
Gourlay said Abramovich, who has been a guest of F1 supremo,
Chelsea regular and fellow billionaire Bernie Ecclestone at the
Monaco Grand Prix in the past, was a fan of Formula One but not
about to buy into the sport.