Guus Hiddink Set To Join Chelsea, Role As Yet Unknown

Talks are underway between the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) and Chelsea to secure the return of Dutch manager Guus Hiddink to Stamford Bridge, with Turkey now admitting that they have no choice but to let Hiddink go back to club management. There had been some question about whether Hiddink, 64, would be willing to abdicate his responsibility as national team manager, but quotes from his camp for the past week have been very encouraging (from the Chelsea perspective, at least), and now the TFF is joining in.

Chelsea is too good an offer to turn down and the Federation understands this. Hiddink feels he still has a job to do there, he wants to work every day, and win Championships and maybe the Champions League. We will understand that he has coached his last Turkey game as long as Chelsea pay the compensation.

-Anonymous TFF source. BBC.

The compensation would probably end up being a contract buyout, with Hiddink still owed about 4M for the remaining year on his contract with Turkey, and according to some sources, a deal has already been reached. It's still unclear to everyone (probably including Hiddink) just what his role will be at the club. After Carlo Ancelotti's firing, there's an obvious vacancy at manager, but previously Hiddink had been described as better suited to a Director of Football role.

Hopefully this all gets wrapped up in short order so we can proceed to drool at our various transfer targets. Hiddink's arrival would be the first step in Chelsea's summer re-tooling program, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.