Sporting director Luis Campos not leaving for Chelsea, assures Lille owner

Chelsea have not had an official director of football since Michael Emenalo left for AS Monaco in November 2017. Since then, Marina Granovskaia has taken care of those duties, with varying degrees of success, though most would agree that a “proper” football person needs to be involved on some level, too.

The rumor mill has been rather quiet along those lines, despite Chelsea’s supposed intention to resume the search. One of the few names linked has been Lille sporting director Luis Campos, who occupied Emenalo’s seat at Monaco from 2014 to 2016, building a French title winner and Champions League semifinalist before leaving to go work for his friend Gerard Lopez. And according to Lopez, despite the renewed Chelsea rumors, that working relationship isn’t ending anytime soon.

“No, no, no. Luis Campos will be at Lille next season.”

-Gerard Lopez; Source: ESPN FC

While Campos doesn’t look to be available for a while , that is not the case for another highly respected name in the field, former Sevilla and now former AS Roma football director Monchi. He resigned his post this week following the dismissal of head coach Eusebio Di Francesco due to their disastrous loss to FC Porto and subsequent exit from the Champions League.

Interest in Monchi is very high already, with Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain reportedly already in for him. Presumably, soon enough we’ll see Chelsea joining the picture as well. The need for an actual technical director has never been higher, regardless of whether we manage to suspend the incoming transfer ban for this summer or not.