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Roman Abramovich pulled the plug on a significant Chelsea transfer despite an agreement already being in place between clubs.
Roman Abramovich
Roman Abramovich was not willing to negotiate with Tottenham (Image: Getty)
Former England international Carlton Cole has revealed that he came within touching distance of leaving Chelsea to join Tottenham, but the plug was pulled on the deal by Roman Abramovich. The then-Blues owner refused to conduct business with his side’s London rivals and offered the striker an unusual move instead.
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Cole came through the academy at Chelsea, making his first-team debut in 2002 against Everton. He gradually became a regular on the Blues bench during the following campaigns before falling down the pecking order at Stamford Bridge due to Abramovich marking his arrival with several striker signings.
Loan stints at Charlton Athletic and Aston Villa provided Cole with much-needed minutes before he returned to Chelsea to feature in their 2005/06 campaign. Once more, the striker struggled to make a mark and was eventually sold to West Ham – where he went on to make over 250 appearances and became a club legend.
However, Cole has revealed that he came very close to leaving Chelsea prior to his move to the Hammers – with a deal being in place for him to make the short-distance switch to Tottenham before Abramovich intervened to point him in the direction of Russia instead.
Carlton Cole
Recalling the bizarre transfer saga to Hayters TV, Cole explained: “Spurs came in initially, Martin Jol and Clive Allen. They wanted me to go over there so I had a nice little meeting with them. I was like ‘Okay, cool, this is where I’m going to go’.
“Done my medical. What happened after that was crazy because I got a phone call. I’ve done my medical, I got a phone call saying that I had something wrong with my knee. So Spurs had to go back to Chelsea, whoever they were doing the deal with, to say ‘Carlton needs to sort out his knee so we need some money off’ basically.
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Carlton Cole
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“You know how it goes over there at Spurs, they’re always trying to cut corners. So they didn’t want to pay the full whack for me, obviously. Word got to Abramovich who had no clue of this deal that was happening. He says no. He was like ‘Carlton, I want you to stay. But I want you to go to my Russian side’.
He’s got I think it’s CSKA Moscow, he’s got another under the same umbrella but I think it’s CSKA Moscow at the time I think. So (Abrahmovich continued) ‘go on loan for a year, go and help them out’. Basically, go and develop for another year and then come back, I’ll give you a new contract. Abramovich said ‘we do not deal with Spurs, that’s why you won’t be going to Spurs’. That’s when the CSKA Moscow thing came up. So I was like ‘Okay, I’m not doing that, I’m definitely not going to Russia!’”
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