‘I would pay it’: Kai Havertz offers to pay for Chelsea to travel to away games
After the sanctions levied against Roman Abramovich, Chelsea have been restricted to a budget of just £20,000 for away travel
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Your support makes all the difference.Kai Havertz has said that he is prepared to pay for Chelsea’s travel to away fixtures after the sanctions against Roman Abramovich restricted the club’s budget.
Chelsea can only spend £20,000 on travel for each away fixture after Abramovich was disqualified as a director following the freezing of his assets by the government of the United Kingdom last week due to his ties to Vladimir Putin.
The club had already booked and paid for the second leg trip to Lille in the Champions League this week, but visit Middlesbrough on Saturday in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and could be forced to make the journey with a reduced travelling party.
A flight north has reportedly been deemed too expensive, though the club are said to be attempting to convince the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to increase their budget.
Haverts suggested that he is prepared to pay out of his own pocket to ensure that Chelsea remain able to get to games, but insisted the squad are able to keep their focus on matters on-the-field.
“I will pay, that’s no problem,” he said. “I think that’s not a big deal for us. For us to come to the games is the most important thing.
“I think there are a lot of harder moments, harder things in the world right now than if we have to take a bus or plane to an away game. I will pay it, no problem.
“We are all professional football players. Everyone knows it’s a strange situation for everyone in the club right now.
“We are the players, we have to focus on playing football and on the matches. I think that’s the best we can do. All the other stuff, the club has to sort out. It’s not about the players.
“I cannot speak about it much because we are very focused on the games. This is the most important thing for us in the moment.”
Abramovich announced his intention to sell the club he has owned since 2003 after Russia invaded the Ukraine.
While the sanctions are in place against the billionaire and he remains the owner of the club, Chelsea are effectively under a transfer ban and unable to sell tickets to fans.
Chelsea have requested that the Middlesbrough game is played behind-closed-doors given in the interests of “sporting integrity” - a suggestion dismissed by their last eight opponents as “bizarre and without any merit”.
It is expected that Chelsea will travel to the North East by bus, and Thomas Tuchel has confirmed that discussions over future travel plans are underway.
Tuchel explained: “There are restrictions, we have to deal with it. There are adjustments in our amount of staff, who is travelling, how many rooms we have in hotels, how we arrive at matches. That will come soon.
“To my understanding everything is in place now we can arrive on a professional level. It is not about luxury, it is not about bling, bling. It is a professional level of sports where we play having only two days between matches while our opponents have four days.
“To arrive and decrease the possibility of injuries, for example. For that, it is better to arrive with a plane than to sit in a bus.
“We try to be as professional as possible in the frame that we can do it. To my understanding, we have a framework to go to Lille and play the game in Lille where there will be absolutely no excuses regarding this. It is like already a bit more difficult to arrange things in the best way possible in the FA Cup.
“As long as we have shirts, as long as we are ‘alive’, as long as we are a team and arrive with our players we will be competitive and fight hard for our success because we owe it to the people that support us in a very visible way. We are in the spotlight. It is our responsibility to do so and we will.”
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