Terry to leave?

[AFII]

TERRY QUIT THREAT
EXCLUSIVE SKIPPER FURY AFTER CHELSEA PULL PLUG ON BUMPER DEAL
By John Cross 10/03/2007

JOHN TERRY'S future at Chelsea was under threat after his contract negotiations broke down last night.

England captain Terry, 26, was expected to sign for life after they offered him a bumper nine-year deal, which would have made him the best paid player in the club's history.

But Chelsea dramatically changed their contract offer on Wednesday when they reduced it to five years - and that has enraged Terry and made him reconsider his options.

The Blues centre-half has two years left on his current £90,000-a-week deal but can leave this summer for £9million under new FIFA rules allowing him to buy out the remainder of his contract.

And it will leave Barcelona and Real Madrid at the head of a queue of top European clubs ready to pay a knockdown fee for one of the best defenders in the world.

Terry, who joined Chelsea as a 12-year-old, believed he would finish his career at Stamford Bridge after they made the initial offer.

It would have put him in the same pay league as Chelsea's top earners Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, who are on around £150,000 a week. But it is the club's sudden decision to change the length of the deal which has really upset Terry.

He has been fiercely loyal to Chelsea and this latest blow comes less than a fortnight after he thanked medical staff for saving his life following being knocked out during the Carling Cup Final victory over Arsenal.

It was thought that Terry was a oneclub man and it was a formality that he would sign a deal for life with Chelsea.

It is not the money but the fact that Chelsea offered a long deal to Terry - only to then turn round and reduce the length of the contract.

Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon had said that they were "well down the line" over contract negotiations for Terry and his England team-mate Frank Lampard.

But Lampard, 28, has yet to be offered an extension on his current deal which has two years left and now they have reached an ugly stalemate with Terry.

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has tightened his grip on the club's spending in recent months and fell out with manager Jose Mourinho after refusing to back him with big money in the January transfer window.

Mourinho's future is uncertain as manager and now Terry could also follow him out of the door in what would be a far more surprising and dramatic departure.

CLICKY - The Mirror

[desertscouser]

I can't see Terry ever leaving Chelsea.

But who in their right mind would offer a 26 yr old a 9 yr contract anyway?! Chelsea are clearly run by idiots and it really does look like they're on the verge of properly imploding.

[AFII]

I think that Lampard will leave but I can't see Terry leave.

Maybe Mourinho, Lampard and Terry all will join Real next season, who knows?

You can always hope

[cobain]

Eh... These players are a one big bunch of küntz!

[Parm]

I think that Lampard will leave but I can't see Terry leave.

Maybe Mourinho, Lampard and Terry all will join Real next season, who knows?

You can always hope

indeed you can.

[hertsred]

There was some guy on Talksport the other day saying that Guus Hiddink has been asked to be Director of Football at Chelsea from the summer, and that he has called Rijkaard and asked him to be first team coach. Perhaps Moaninho IS going to take Terry off to hius next job.

[thesilverfoxlfc]

I think that Lampard will leave but I can't see Terry leave.

Maybe Mourinho, Lampard and Terry all will join Real next season, who knows?

You can always hope

This wouldnt be as far retched.

[Zambian_Red]

Eh... These players are a one big bunch of küntz!

sheva and ballack on 150,000 pounds a week surely thats a retirement pension.

Is they do sign up terry and lamturd they will probably earn around that figure i wonder how they generate so much revenue to break even. To be honest any player wanting to play for chelsea is for one reason a bumper retirement package

[Biff]

I thought fatty had one of those parity clauses in his contract giving him top salary billing.

Fatty's best days are behind him (quite literally) and maybe its not such a bad move by Chavski to move him on,

Terry would be a much bigger loss......can't see them letting him go. If they do we should be interested.

[Joe Le Toff]

I can't see Terry ever leaving Chelsea.

But who in their right mind would offer a 26 yr old a 9 yr contract anyway?! Chelsea are clearly run by idiots and it really does look like they're on the verge of properly imploding.

[Redlife]

The idiots have shot themselves in the foot by paying people like Shevchenko and Ballack so much. Considering that Terry's contribution to the team is (current injury aside, etc) so much greater than theirs (and will be - out of all proportion to theirs - for another decade or so), it's only reasonable that he should want to be paid as much as them.


Hey, their annual loss was only another cah-squillion £ this year - a squillion down on the previous year's. They're clearly budgeting well.

[Kinell]

He'll sign a new contract for sure.

[lfc4ever]

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2031162,00.html

Premiership's top clubs set £100,000 limit on wages


Exclusive

Jamie Jackson
Sunday March 11, 2007
The Observer

Frank Lampard and Cristiano Ronaldo have 'no chance' of receiving the massive pay increases they are demanding from Chelsea and Manchester United. That is what they will be told this week by Peter Kenyon and David Gill, the chief executives of their clubs.

Given the value of both men to their teams - Lampard was voted the world's second-best player last year and Ronaldo is 'currently the best player in the world', according to Sir Alex Ferguson - the decisions signal a sea change in attitudes to players' wages, which, in some cases, have spiralled to more than £100,000 a week.

Article continues
A senior executive at one the Premiership's 'big four' clubs told Observer Sport last night: 'There has been no formal discussion between clubs about this, but when speaking generally with other executives I sense there is certainly a feeling of "no more on player wages, otherwise where will they stop?" In negotiations, we now have an element where player representatives point to the new TV deal as if it is more money for the pot to pay player wages. That is not going to happen.'

A senior source at Old Trafford said: 'There is currently a big fight going on between Ronaldo and United. He wants around £120,000 a week, but the club will not go above £100,000. He will stay, but there is a lot of trouble ahead.' The Portugal winger is thought to be on £60,000 a week in a deal that ends in 2010.

Lampard will also be frustrated in his demands. 'He has no chance of getting what he wants,' an insider claimed. 'He will not be offered more than £100,000. That's final. He will have to take what Chelsea offer, end of story.'

It is further evidence of Roman Abramovich's new stance over Chelsea's finances. After sanctioning the £130,000...#8209;a-week wages for summer signings Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, the billionaire owner refused to pay inflated fees in the January transfer window and, with negotiations with John Terry also having stalled, is taking a hard line over players' salaries. Lampard signed a five-year deal in 2004, but under European Union employment law he can buy himself out of the contract from May.

Steve Kutner, Lampard's agent, described the Chelsea insider's statements as 'preposterous'.

'We haven't been made an offer yet,' said Kutner. 'But £100,000 is absolutely ridiculous because Frank is on way more than that already. I've had discussions with Peter [Kenyon] and we know where we want to go. Chelsea want Frank to stay for the next five years and so do we. I certainly haven't given the club any parameters - we are waiting.'

Lampard, 28, is thought to earn closer to £80,000 a week rather than the £100,000-plus claimed by Kutner. And it is unlikely that he or Ronaldo will be able to attract higher wages in Europe. Barcelona have never been extravagant payers and Real Madrid's galactico days are behind them. They are the only two clubs that could feasibly top the wages paid in England.

There has been speculation that Lampard is heading for Barca in the summer. His wife is from the region and the Catalan club were thought to be interested. But a Barcelona executive confirmed to Observer Sport that they will not target the midfielder. 'The club is not interested in Lampard, no way,' he said.

[lfc4ever]

Crazy money!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premiership/chelsea/article1496727.ece

Terry demands £60m deal
undefined
Duncan Castles

JOHN TERRY’S contract negotiations with Chelsea have broken down over the England captain’s demand to be the best-paid player at the club for the next nine years. At current rates, the deal would be worth a minimum of £58.2m, making it the richest in British sporting history, but with new signings at the world’s biggest-spending club it would inevitably rise.

The “limitless parity” clause would guarantee that Terry was the highest-paid player at the club until beyond his 35th birthday. While Chelsea were prepared to increase his wages to the club’s current ceiling of £121,000 a week, which is paid to Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko, they could not accept the liability of promising the defender equivalence with the club’s best-remunerated player for the best part of the next decade.

Having initially proposed a deal until the summer of 2016, Chelsea are understood to be surprised and disappointed that Terry has rejected their revised offer of £6.3m a year until the end of 2011-12 season. Club officials are, however, sanguine about suggestions that Terry might exploit Fifa regulations and buy out his contract at the end of this season, believing that they appear to be based on a misreading of the relevant clause. Section IV of Fifa’s Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players dictates that players under the age of 28 can terminate their contracts a minimum of three years or seasons after their current deal came into force. As Terry, who is 26, resigned with Chelsea in November 2004, he cannot utilise the rule until the end of next season.

Fearing that Jose Mourinho will seek to take his most-trusted lieutenants with him in the likely event that the manager leaves the club this summer, Chelsea have been eager to tie down their most important players with lucrative “golden handcuffs” deals. The club’s leading scorer Didier Drogba agreed a revised £91,000-a-week contract in November. Michael Essien, the midfielder, has been offered, but is yet to sign, a similar deal. Frank Lampard, who is the most interested in following Mourinho to pastures new, is set to be offered the Ballack-Shevchenko terms.

With Terry the least likely of Mourinho’s stalwarts to be invited abroad by the manager because of his perceived unsuitability to the foreign game, both Chelsea and their captain expected a new contract to be agreed long before the end of the current campaign. Last month Terry believed that all the negotiations had been completed and that the parity clause had been included. The contract remained unsigned and further negotiations concluded last Wednesday having failed to produce a resolution.

Terry’s present deal pays him £67,000 a week, a comparatively limited sum for a central figure at Stamford Bridge. His England teammate Lampard has been on £5m per annum since improving his terms in the summer of 2004. A source close to Terry said that parity with the club’s highest earners rather than the length of the new deal was his priority.

David Beckham’s new contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy is worth a reputed £25.6m a year over five years, but only £5.1m is in guaranteed salary, the rest being dependent on a series of bonuses relating to the franchise’s financial performance.