Timo Werner moves from Leipzig to Chelsea. In the Champions League final, he could still have played for RB – but the club made a conscious decision not to play. These are the reasons.
International player Timo Werner justified his move from RB Leipzig to Chelsea this summer with the convincing overall package. “There were some top clubs that fought for me. The overall package Chelsea London was the best for me, my game and my career,” said the 24-year-old in an interview with the “Sportbuzzer”.
However, Werner already switched to the Premier League on July 1, missing the Champions League with Leipzig. After a 1-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur and a 3-0 win in Leipzig in the round of 16, the club is a round ahead. But RB has consciously decided against using the striker, as it has now turned out.
Werner defends missing the Champions League
With 28 league goals, Werner ended the season as the most successful Bundesliga scorer in Leipzig’s club history. After his last game for RB Leipzig last weekend, the striker will miss the Champions League final with the Saxons in August. “Of course it hurts me that I can’t help now to do the really big thing. But I’m also a Chelsea FC player from July 1st and will be paid by Chelsea,” Werner defended the decision.
A stake in the blitz tournament of the Champions League RB Leipzig would have cost several million euros. As the “kicker” reports, Werner’s new club FC Chelsea was ready to release the striker for the final round, which starts on August 12 in Lisbon.
RB would have had to pay several million for CL use
However, Leipzig should have paid two monthly salaries for the 24-year-old, plus rental and insurance fees. In total, a sum of between four and five million euros would obviously have been due, so RB boss Oliver Mintzlaff, according to the magazine, waived from an economic perspective. Werner consultant Karlheinz Förster agreed, and also cited sporting reasons.
When moving from Leipzig to London for the fixed transfer of 53 million euros, old technology was used due to the coronavirus pandemic. “My consultant could never fly to England, the Chelsea side could not come to Germany. There was a lot of fax traffic,” said Werner the “kicker”. His father and his advisor met trainer Frank Lampard and ex-professional Petr Cech personally before the corona lockdown.
Frank Lampard: Has been the head coach at Chelsea FC since July 2019. (Source: PA Images / imago images)
Money didn’t matter
Werner himself had been in contact mainly with Chelsea defender Antonio Rüdiger. “He was my number one contact for questions about how things are going internally in the club and how things are going in the cabin.”
The money played the “smallest role” when changing, said Werner. “Otherwise I could have gone to China.” Chelsea is a top address in European football. “We get a really good team with high quality, want to attack at the top,” the previous Leipzig player told the “Sportbuzzer”.
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