Last month, a report from ESPN’s “sources” claimed that Chelsea were possibly interested in the services of Fenerbahce defender Simon Kjaer and were tracking his situation. For one reason or another, Fenerbahce have just now decided to send an official answer to these rumours. Why even answer them? Who knows. Why now? Who knows!
"Recently, some text and audio press releases have reported some false news that Chelsea, a Premier League team, has made a transfer offer to Danish football player Simon Kjaer."
"Our football club does not have any transfer offers from [Chelsea] for Kjaer. Therefore, transfer news [...] do not reflect reality. Our football team continues to work happily and successfully on our team."
"We ask the public to disregard such lie and manipulative news regarding the disruption of our team."
-source: Fenerbahce official website via Google Translate
Fener’s vehement denials are especially ironic considering that the Turkish media are notorious for random and inaccurate rumors (or, in the case of that one Mikel interview, completely made up!). Surely, Fener know how to deal with all that noise without having to release press statements every time one of their players is linked with a move!
But, in a way, this almost validates the earlier rumors — Kjaer’s situation might be unstable enough that he or the team themselves required this public bit of reassurance? — but the end result is the same regardless: we can cross the 27-year-old off our shortlist ... if he was still on there, that is, which may not even be the case after almost a month’s silence.
(h/t: Thanks to @JoostNa for the tip)