Ancelotti in no rush to spend in January sales as ban suspended
Saturday November 07 2009
Carlo Ancelotti insists he will not be rushed into buying new players in January even though the Court of Arbitration for Sport has suspended their transfer ban.
CAS yesterday agreed to suspend their FIFA-imposed transfer ban until a final decision is made in relation to their appeal.
FIFA banned the Blues from any transfer activity until 2011 after they were found guilty of inducing teenage Gael Kakuta to breach his contract with French club Lens.
Chelsea appealed to CAS against the punishment and also requested the ban be suspended until their case had been dealt with in full.
That is now likely to take place well into the new year.
The Blues will lose Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou and John Obi Mikel to the African Nations Cup in January but Ancelotti remains confident they can cope without them.
"Now, thanks to this decision, we have time to look for new players," said Ancelotti. "But we don't want to take a decision in this moment. At the moment, I'm very happy with the squad, these players, and it's not necessary at the moment to take new players.
questions
"I know we will lose four in January but if we maintain the players' fitness we can do a good period also without the African players. Our focus is on the game on Sunday. We can buy players in January, but now we have other questions. It's not important now what we can do in January."
CAS are not expected to hear the case until the new year, which should leave Chelsea free to buy and sell as normal in January. CAS confirmed on October 22 they had received an appeal from Chelsea asking for the ban to be stayed.
Immediately after the decision was made public, the London club made clear their intent to appeal against the ban and compensation payments to Lens of almost €1m, which they described as "disproportionate".
FIFA's DRC agreed with Lens that Chelsea had been guilty of inducing the youngster to break his contract and announced their verdict in a short statement on September 3.
"The DRC found that the player had indeed breached a contract signed with the French club. Equally, the DRC deemed it to be established that the English club induced the player to such breach.
"A restriction of four months on his eligibility to play in official matches is imposed on the player Gael Kakuta while the club Chelsea is banned from registering any new players for the two next entire and consecutive registration periods following the notification of the present decision.
"Furthermore, Chelsea, has to pay RC Lens training compensation in the amount of €130,000," read the statement.
- Adrian Curtis
Irish Independent
