CEO comments as Chelsea takeover could open transfer partnership – ‘Enormous advantages’

Chelsea beat Crystal Palace 2-0 on Sunday, and are set to return to Wembley to face Liverpool in the FA Cup final.

The club will be keen to end the season on a high, especially with all the uncertainty around ownership. That situation should be resolved in the coming weeks, with Stephen Pagliuca one of the men in contention to take the club forward.

He has shares in Atalanta, and it’s been said he’ll need to dispose of those to go through with the Chelsea purchase. However, the feeling at the Serie A side is very different, and they’re looking forward to some kind of partnership with Chelsea.

Luca Percassi, Atalanta’s CEO, has been speaking to the Italian media about various situations around the club. Tuttosport quote him as saying: “We hope that Pagliuca will be able to take Chelsea, we would have enormous advantages.”

The Italian newspaper go on to say: ‘The reasons are soon explained, if the American manages to take over the London club too, an axis of collaboration could be created which for Atalanta would be very precious. An example? A player like Abraham could get to Bergamo much more easily, the English market would be much more accessible with obvious advantages for Atalanta.’

Quite how that would work with UEFA’s rules isn’t clear. What is clear is that Atalanta’s CEO doesn’t see Pagliuca taking over Chelsea as an issue for the Italian side, and the wider feeling in Italy is it could even help the club.