Hakan Calhanoglu denies ever talking to Turkish media about a Chelsea move

The notoriously unreliable Turkish football media has been proven notoriously unreliable once again by none other than Hakan Calhanoglu himself, who was linked strongly with Chelsea Football Club this weekend after supposedly telling a journalist that “Allah willing, I will be a Chelsea player next season”.

Today, Calhanoglu denied ever speaking to any journalist about Chelsea, or about his four-month FIFA ban for a breach of contract that the Court of Arbitration for Sport recently upheld.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve had to deal with fake quotes in Turkish football media — they once made up an entire interview with Mikel, who was constantly linked to teams in the Super Lig — so we’re anything but surprised that the quotes attributed to Calhanoglu aren’t really real either. But it’s a good thing that players have a direct line of access to fans and the public these days with Twitter and Instagram and the like.

So, now that this record has been set straight, we can safely shelve the Calhanoglu rumors ... until the summer, probably, which is when he’ll come off his ban and Leverkusen will have to decide what to do with him.