Blues left in limbo after Guardiola’s Bayern move

Bayern Munich won the race to sign up Pep Guardiola last night in a move which raised fresh questions over who will manage Chelsea next season.

Guardiola will move to Germany in the summer and has signed a three-year contract, with Bayern’s impressive appointment quashing the prospect of the former Barcelona boss moving to the Barclays Premier League in the near future.

Chelsea, last year’s Champions League winners, have been repeatedly linked with the man Blues owner Roman Abramovich is reputed to admire greatly. Reports have claimed he was offered a highly lucrative contract to take over at Chelsea when interim manager Rafael Benitez’s stint in charge finishes at the end of the season, and it has been confirmed Guardiola turned down more money from elsewhere to go to Bayern.

Chelsea have never confirmed their interest in the former Spain midfielder, but his record at Barcelona, where he won 14 trophies in four years, made Guardiola the most sought-after out-of-work coach in world football.

It emerged that Guardiola signed up for Bayern before Christmas. His agent Josep Maria Orobitg said: I don’t know exactly which day, around the 20th or the second half of December.

“We were looking over the offers and this isn’t the team which offered the most money. It was chosen for the organisation there, for the potential that he sees, and for their players.”

That raised the possibility that a Premier League club offered big money to Guardiola, although AC Milan and wealthy Paris St Germain were also potential suitors.

“From Christmas he had to choose his future. All this has been signed for some time.”

Since leaving Barcelona last summer, Guardiola has taken a career break and lived in New York, but now Bavaria and the Bundesliga beckons.

Guardiola this week revealed his desire to one day coach in England, but he will be tied to Bayern through to June 2016, taking over from current boss Jupp Heynckes who at the age of 67 will retire in the summer.

Guardiola will inevitably be linked with players from Barcelona but looks increasingly likely to take over a team of league champions at Bayern.

The retiring Heynckes is on course to lead Bayern to the Bundesliga title, with the team currently nine points clear at the summit.

They are also in the last 16 of the Champions League and the quarter-finals of the DFB Pokal.