Coach Guus Hiddink's future remains a mystery
The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) has denied reports that it has entered into negotiations with Chelsea over the "transfer" of coach Guus Hiddink.
The current Turkish national team coach is currently Chelsea's top target in finding a replacement for Carlo Ancelotti, who was sacked last month after the Blues failed to win any titles last season.
The Dutch strategist received the trust of Chelsea's board of directors as well as the players because he had led Chelsea for 3 months as interim coach but helped the London team reach the Champions League semi-finals and win the FA Cup.
According to the British press, the London team has negotiated directly with the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) and the TFF will only let Hiddink leave if they receive a contract compensation of 4 million pounds.
However, according to the Mirror (UK), the latest announcement from TFF has denied the above information and confirmed that no decision regarding Hiddink will be made until next week. Chelsea seems to want to speed up the deal to have time to prepare for the new season, but TFF believes that they can only discuss this issue next week because President Mahmut Ozgener is currently on vacation.
“No official decision has been made yet as both sides are busy with their personal plans. Mr. Hiddink and the President are both on vacation so there is no discussion at the moment,” said TFF spokesman Turker Tozar.
Mr. Tozar affirmed that the information that Chelsea and TFF had reached a compensation agreement was fabricated: “Hiddink is still our coach and his contract does not expire until 2012.”
In addition, Guus Hiddink's representative, Mr. Cees van Nieuwenhuizen, said that the 63-year-old strategist is still focusing on leading the Turkish national team to qualify for Euro 2012, although this will be an extremely difficult task as they were held to a draw by Belgium in the match last weekend and are 8 points behind the top team Germany.
After the draw, Turkish public opinion expressed disagreement with the former Real Madrid coach, but Mr. Van Nieuwenhuizen declared that Hiddink still feels happy in his current position.
"He is still satisfied after the draw with Belgium because Turkey is still in the race to qualify for Euro 2012. Nothing has changed. As I said before, Guus still has a contract with the Turkish national team. He is still here until the contract expires. Anyone can create a story about the future of a strategist, but what I said is the truth," the Mirror quoted Mr. Nieuwenhuizen.
Meanwhile, the Guardian (UK) reported that Mr. Van Nieuwenhuizen revealed that coach Guus Hiddink will still be responsible for leading the Turkish national team until September 2010 in the upcoming matches between Turkey and Kazakhstan and Austria.
According to TT&VH
