Chelsea fail with third offer for Fofana as Leicester ‘immediately’ reject ‘highly conditional’ £70m bid
Leicester City have reportedly ‘immediately turned down’ a ‘highly conditional’ £70m offer from Chelsea for their defender Wesley Fofana.
The Blues are not messing around this summer, as Todd Boehly has been quick to establish that they will continue to be one of Europe’s biggest spending clubs during his ownership.
Around £180m has already been spent on new signings and they are far from done with them still targeting a striker, a winger and another new centre-back.
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If reports are to be believed, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is ‘edging closer’ to joining Chelsea, so that will be one box ticked.
Chelsea are also targeting Fofana and Everton’s attacker Anthony Gordon. Speaking earlier this month, Blues boss Thomas Tuchel refuted Gary Neville’s claim that they are “panicking” with their signings:
“(Gary Neville said) panicking? No. I would describe it as super hard working, learning new on the job so it is pretty much going on. New ownership, stepping in the transfer market is one of the toughest things you can do.
“I have nothing but the biggest respect and compliments for both Todd and Behdad Eghbal. I don’t know when they sleep, maybe they never sleep. We have a very honest, open, direct line of communication.
“The transfers so far speak for themselves. We have a delay, of course. Nobody is guilty, it’s because of the sanctions. This led to the loss of key players but like I said both of the owners involved in the daily business do fantastic jobs so far. The transfer market speaks for itself.”
Their pursuit of Fofana is proving to be difficult. Having already had two bids rejected, Chelsea have returned with a third offer this week.
David Ornstein of The Athletic is reporting that Leicester City ‘immediately turned down’ Chelsea’s latest bid.
The fee for him could have reached £70m, but this was like Chelsea’s previous two offers in that it was ‘highly conditional’.
Ornstein adds that were unlikely to Leicester receive the full £70m had they accepted the proposal.
The situation is growing complicated in that Chelsea are ‘currently unwilling’ to raise their offer above £70m.
Leicester therefore must decide ‘whether to compromise’ with them currently demanding over £80m for their prized asset.
A player swap would make the deal a bit more likely, but at the time of writing, ‘there is no discussion’ to change the structure of the transfer.