Chelsea leadership blame old regime for big spending, claims Antonio Rüdiger’s representative

Boehly's leadership team have reportedly blamed their predecessors

Chelsea's leadership team have blamed the old regime for their intense activity in the transfer market, a representative of former player Antonio Rüdiger has claimed. The Blues were one of the most active in the market, signing £270m worth of talent and were the biggest spenders in Europe this summer. Boehly bought the London club from Roman Abramovich in May for an estimated £4.25bn after the Russian had been sanctioned by the UK government due to his close ties to Vladimir Putin. Abramovich and his former director Marina Granovskaia saw several key defenders leave towards the end of their tenure, with Rüdiger being one of those, joining Real Madrid on a free transfer. The departures left Thomas Tuchel short of options at the back and required Boehly to dip his hands into his pocket. Under his guidance Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella and Kalidou Koulibaly all joined for a combined total of over £150m. Saif Rubie, who acts as Rüdiger's intermediary, said that Boehly and co blame the previous regime for forcing them to spend big after willingly parting ways with several of their other options. "The new regime had to come and pick up the pieces of decisions that were made by the old regime," he said, as per the Daily Mail. "Things like letting the lad (Guehi) go to Crystal Palace, who was also a defender, letting another (Tomori) go for not a lot of money to AC Milan. "When I spoke to the new regime, I said the old regime cost you £100m. Do you know what they said to me? 'More.'" Rubie also gave a damning insight into the way the club had handled his client's contract, claiming that they did very little to persuade the German international to stay at Stamford Bridge. "What if I told you Chelsea, and the old regime, basically made next to no effort to keep the player. At the time he was very happy to stay and potentially be the captain of the club," Rubie continued. "He was offered a contract that was half the amount Romelu Lukaku were earning." Related links:

• Wesley Fofana fires parting shot at Leicester after making move to Chelsea
• Frank Lampard claims he lost support from ‘those above him’ at Chelsea
• Gary Neville accuses Chelsea owner Todd Boehly of being ‘naive’