Chelsea deny ‘espionage’ claims from German media in Kai Havertz saga

The Kai Havertz saga has taken a weird turn in the last 24 hours, with SportBild claiming that Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia has been conducting some sort of covert operation on Bayer Leverkusen executives Rudi Völler and Fernando Carro to learn (personal) “weaknesses” that could be exploited in negotiations.

Sounds like someone’s been watching too many movies and reading a few too many John Grisham books maybe? Then again, some might just call that “doing your homework”. One must know their opponent in any battle, be that on the pitch or in the boardroom.

Others might call this, simply, BS, while others might point out SportBild’s weird inability to come to terms with the fact that Granovskaia is ... and get this ... a woman! I KNOW! (Here’s a good post on this from the usually excellent Sport Witness.)

Anyway, for whatever reason, Chelsea have deemed it worth our time to “vigorously” deny these “Espionage by Chelsea’s Russian” claims (The Emperor’s Hand is the preferred terminology, please, for future reference, SportBild).

“We vigorously deny these suggestions; these claims are a complete fabrication.”

-Chelsea statement; source: PA via Yahoo!

Well okay, but Rudi Völler’s terribly partial to periwinkle blue and he simply cannot resist a Junior Mint. They’re very refreshing!