Royal Antwerp’s Radja Nainggolan has revealed he had an opportunity to join Chelsea earlier in his career.
The 33-year-old initially joined AS Roma on loan from Cagliari in January 2014 and his stay in the Italian capital was made permanent later that year.
He was part of the Roma squad that made it to the Champions League semi-final in 2018, where they lost to Liverpool.
OCW Sport had an opportunity to interview the Belgian and a segment of the discussion has been relayed by FcInterNews.
Nainggolan has insisted he wasn’t looking to leave Roma, but ended up leaving them to join Inter Milan in 2018 because of the decision taken by the Giallorossi.
“We reached the semi-final of the Champions League, at the end of a great season. I was convinced to stay, but for the club it was not the same thing. I go on vacation and from nowhere I get calls from Turkey, from all over the world,” he said.
“Roma had given the mandate to certain agents to represent the company in the negotiations, also taking out my agent. At that point I decided where to go and I chose Inter to follow Luciano Spalletti.”
When explaining the reason for the same, Nainggolan said Chelsea were an also an option for him.
“If I was thinking about money, I would have had a very different career, but I never cared about money. I could have gone to Juventus after Cagliari and also after Roma, just as I could have gone to Chelsea,” Nainggolan stressed.
“I said I would never go to Juve, but not because I hate the Juventus team, as someone wrote on social media, but simply because I like to win against the strongest.
“In those years the strongest team was Juve and I wanted to play against them. That was my challenge. Going to Juve, playing five games and winning everything was not winning for me.”
Nainggolan doesn’t detail why he didn’t end up joining Chelsea. Last November, he told MidMidPodcast that he rejected the west London club because they didn’t offer him a good deal.
“Antonio Conte was coach of the Blues at the time and wanted to bring me to England. However, they were shocked when they heard what I was earning in Rome,” he said.
“They ended up offering €750,000 more, but I didn’t want to move to England for that amount. That’s why that transfer eventually fell through.”
