It would appear there’s been a bit of confusion regarding the future of Hakan Calhanoglu in the European press, with quotes of a desired move to Stamford Bridge doing the rounds.
The Bayer Leverkusen attacking midfielder, who is currently banned from playing football for the next four months after being found guilty of breaching a contractual agreement with Trabzonspor back in 2011, allegedly said: “God willing, I will be a Chelsea player next season. There are also a number of other clubs interested in signing me”.
Picked up by a number of British outlets, the story was originally relayed by Turkish-Football, who claimed it started in Fanatik, a Turkish sports media outlet.
However, looking at the Fanatik article, the source of the quote actually appears to be Hurriyet, another Turkish media outlet.
That’s where the trail ends, which would lead you to believe that’s who Calhanoglu announced his desire to sign for Antonio Conte’s side to, except that isn’t the case.
Taking to Twitter, the Turkey international made it very clear he had said ‘nothing about Chelsea in the press and didn’t talk to any Turkish journalist’.
I said nothing about Chelsea in the press & didn’t talk to any Turkish journalist – neither about the court decision nor about my future!
— Hakan Çalhanoğlu (@hakanc10) February 6, 2017
Also quoted by Hurriyet as talking about the court decision and how the ban came about, it now appears all of that was made up.
Why? We don’t know.
If you want to hear his side of the story regarding the whole CAS appeal and ban, he did give an interview to Express in Germany, which you can find here.
