Ranieri's future remains foggy

The meeting of the Chelsea coach Claudio Ranieri and the Executive Director of the club Peter Kenion did not clarify about the future Italian mentor. The club’s statement says that Ranieri and Kenion discussed the “personal nature of”, and the meeting itself was designed to "clarify the position of the coach in the club." Agent Ranieri Phil Smith said that the lack of a clear answer about whether Ranieri would continue to train Chelsea or not was no surprise for him, the Air Force reports.

Since the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea, rumors that Ranieri will not subside. The media have seen the coach of the England national team Sven Joran Ericksson to this position, but he recently extended his contract with the football association of England. Ranieri’s contract expires only in 2007, and the Italian has repeatedly said that he wanted to remain at the head of the “blue”.

Initially, it seemed unlikely that the final decision on the future of Ranieri would be made on Wednesday: while the leadership of the club has no obvious claims to the coach who brought the “Chelsea” for the first time in his history to the semifinals of the Champions League. In addition, Chelsea ranks second in the championship of England. The victory in the Champions League is likely to retain Ranieri his work. As for the country's championship, the Italian himself recently admitted that the Arsenal cannot be caught up.

However, the owner of the Chelsea and senior officials within the club never talked about one hundred percent and unconditional support of Ranieri. All season the newspapers were full of loud headlines about how Chelsea extends Ericksson and, possibly, other leading football coaches of Europe.

Ranieri says that he is unlikely to agree to the ceremonial position of the football director in many respects. If the roads of the Italian and Chelsea will disperse, Ranieri will be extremely easy to find a job. According to reports, interest in him is shown by the Madrid Real Madrid.