Arnesen to leave Chelsea

27 November 2010 11:30
Frank Arnesen will step down as Chelsea's sporting director at the end of this season, the club have confirmed. The Dane has spent five years at Stamford Bridge so far, overseeing the club's youth development and other areas, but has announced his intention to leave when his contract expires in the summer in order to "seek a new challenge". Arnesen, who joined Chelsea in 2005 after previously working at Tottenham, said: "It has been a privilege and an honour for me to work for such a big club with so many great people. "After six wonderful years I have decided to seek a new challenge when my contract expires at the end of this season." Arnesen continued on chelseafc.com: "It has been a tremendous journey and I would like to thank everyone at Chelsea, especially Roman [Abramovich], for giving me the incredible opportunity to help build on the club's academy and youth system along with our greatly talented academy and scouting staff. "We are now seeing the fruits of that labour as our stated aim was to get one player from the academy into the first team each year from 2010. We have a great crop of young players now coming through, and I feel it's the right time for me to start looking towards a new challenge."

Source: PA