Timo Werner’s Chelsea transfer held up by medical, COVID-19 travel restrictions — report

Timo Werner’s transfer to Chelsea is supposedly all agreed and maybe even all paid for, but no announcement seems to be forthcoming anytime soon. While that’s not a problem if the reports are true, we’ve seen transfers fall apart at the last minute far too many times to be truly comfortable with the situation.

Unfortunately, it sounds like we’ll have to stay a bit more patient, until at the least the end of the month when the Bundesliga is set to finish right now.

According to The Athletic’s Raphael Honigstein, the delay in the transfer has nothing to do with finances or contracts, but rather with the state of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely restricted non-essential travel, which means that Werner cannot fly to London to complete a medical and sign some papers, and also means that Chelsea staff cannot fly out to see him and do the same in person in Germany.

It’s unclear if fax machines are broken or what. And transfer have been announced without medicals before — or we could use the locals instead to conduct what is rarely anything more than a formality — though I suppose there is no rush.

Once Werner’s season is done, he will be free to come over, sit through a two-week quarantine, and make things officially official.

As long as we don’t get all Willian’d or Mikel’d or, worse, Robinho’d.