An intermediary agent in the deal which saw Antonio Rudiger join Real Madrid from Chelsea this summer has claimed the club's previous ownership is to blame for Thomas Tuchel's backline troubles. The 29-year-old saw his deal at Stamford Bridge expire this summer and, despite months of negotiations over a new one, he penned a four-year contract at the Santiago Bernabeu via a free transfer.
The defender featured 202 times for the Blues during his five-year tenure and, despite a shaky start, he quickly grew into a pillar of Chelsea's success. football.london understand that Rudiger passed on a new deal which would have made him the highest-paid defender in the club's history.
He was reportedly demanding a large signing-on fee for a new contract, along with agents' fees, effectively putting the deal out of reach for the west Londoners. But, Saif Rubie - the aforementioned intermediary agent - has said otherwise and claims to know what happened, contrary to reports.
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Speaking on talkSPORT, Rubie said: "Let me confirm this live on air, the deal with Real Madrid was the smallest deal on offer. There was a club in England almost offering double the amount and a club in Europe offering double the amount. Everyone knew there was clubs interested in this player, again, he was one of the best defenders."
Rubie also claims to have asked Chelsea questions of their transfer plan following the exits of Marc Guehi and Fikayo Tomori amid Rudiger's looming departure too. Blaming Marina Granovskaia - the reigning director at the time - and the Blues' higher-ups, he said: "The new regime who had to come up and pick up the pieces of decisions that was made by the old regime.
"Letting the lad go to Crystal Palace who was also a defender [Guehi], letting another defender go to AC Milan who has become a very good defender [Tomori]. When I spoke to the new regime I said to them, actually the new regime cost you £100million, do you know what they said to me?"
"The reality is Chelsea or the previous owners of Chelsea didn’t see the value of keeping him on," Rubie added. "Many clubs saw a huge value in him. In this scenario just to give you an example, the player when Real Madrid was coming in for him, when PSG, Juventus all the clubs - this is public knowledge - he was very happy to stay at Chelsea."
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