Dutch FA to investigate the connections between Chelsea and Vitesse Arnhem

Dutch FA to investigate the connections between Chelsea and Vitesse Arnhem

The Dutch FA has decided to investigate the Vitesse Arnhem ownership structure after the club’s previous major share holder, Merab Jordania accused Chelsea of exerting undue influence on the Dutch club. He further said that the Premier League giants had prevented the club from qualifying for the Champions League.

The club’s current owner, Alexander Chigirinsky and Roman Abramovich are close friends. Chelsea had sent four of their players on loan to Vitesse, Bertrand Traoré, Lucas Piazon, Patrick van Aanholt and Christian Atsu.

Recently, a bitter problem came up between Chigirinsky and Jordania following suggestions from the latter that Chelsea had prevented the club from qualifying for the UEFA Champions League.

Chelsea officials have denied the allegations mentioning that they had nothing to do with Vitesse’s performance and the club’s Champions League appearance would actually benefit their players who are on loan.

According to The Guardian, Jordania said: “I want to tell the Vitesse supporters the real story. I wanted to reach for the title, but ‘London’ didn’t want that in the end. Ambition is fine, but Vitesse is not allowed to reach the Champions League. I will tell you now why [the manager] Fred Rutten left [last June]. He knew that he wasn’t allowed to win the title with Vitesse.

“In the winter he brought the team to the top. We had the feeling we needed one more player to win the title, Kelvin Leerdam. The transfer seemed to be a done deal when all of a sudden ‘London’ intervened. We were not allowed to be too strong. I couldn’t explain that to Fred. I had to cover the club and ‘London’, but it caused a lot of tension and chaos.”

Regarding Wilfred Bony’s departure he mentioned: “I wanted to keep Bony in Arnhem for six more months. “I was in touch with Michael Laudrup, the Swansea manager at the time. I told him it was better that he took Bony in the winter, for Vitesse to start strong in the season, but Bony had to be sold.”

However, Vitesse chairman, Bert Roetert ignored the former owner’s claims mentioning it as “a poor 1 April joke”.