Bantah Salzburg CEO Rumor Christop Freund Changes Marina Granovskia Position At Chelsea

Austria club, Salzburg. (Photo: Twitter @RedBullSalzburg)

JAKARTA - Red Bull Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Salzburg Stephan Reiter denied rumors that their sports director Christoph Freund would leave the club and join Chelsea.

The back Freund is said to be one of the strong candidates to fill the vacant position of sports director of The Blues since Marina Granovskia left. He was even reported to have reached a verbal agreement with the London team.

Transfer expert Fabrizio Romano tweeted on Monday also confirmed it. He said the move was only a matter of time, but now it has been denied by Reiter.

"I can definitely put that aside, both Chelsea and Christoph Freund don't talk to me or the club's management about things like that," Reiter told Austria's Sky Sport.

Freund has served as sporting director of Salzburg since 2015. He was the figure who brought Erling Haaland to the Austrian club in 2018 before being sold to Borussia Dortmund.

His top score on the transfer market made Chelsea interested in signing him. The Blues even targeted Freund should have joined them before the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

However, Salzburg's refusal would be a crushing blow to the Blues. The reason is, they are in a massive restructuring plan under their new owner Todd Boehly.

"Christoph recently signed a contract with us until 2026, which applies to him as well as players, managers, or coaches," said Reiter.

Previously, Boehly acted as interim director of sports during last summer's transfer schedule. Chelsea added several names to their squad under Boehly's direction.

Their front lines of Raheem Sterling and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The front lines of Raheem Koulibaly, and Marc Cucurella, were brought in to strengthen the defense.

In addition, Chelsea also received the signatures of young players such as Carnegie Chukwuemeka and Gabriel Slonina. However, Boehly's lack of experience forced the Blues to look for a new figure for that position.

Some of the names of previous candidates had surfaced before Freund's name came to the fore. The names were Michael Edwards (former Liverpool player), Paul Mitchell (US Monaco), and Luis Campos (Paris Saint-Germain).