Chelsea have reportedly decided against appointing RB Leipzig chief executive Oliver Mintzlaff as their new sporting director.
Co-owner Todd Boehly is on the lookout to find a replacement for Marina Granovskaia, who left her role as sporting director at the end of June.
Paris Saint-Germain's Luis Campos has recently been linked with the job, but the 58-year-old has played down reports of the Blues prising him away from the Parc des Princes.
Chelsea have since turned their attention to Leipzig's Mintzlaff and Red Bull Salzburg chief Christoph Freund, with Boehly an admirer of the Red Bull model.
© Reuters
According to The Athletic, Chelsea explored the possibility of hiring Mintzlaff and they held a meetings with 47-year-old German earlier this summer to discuss their plans going forward.
Born in the Western city of Bonn, Mintzlaff began as a long-distance runner before working as the head of sports marketing at Puma for eight years between 2000 and 2008.
Since 2014, he has overseen Leipzig's rapid rise to become one of the Bundesliga's strongest clubs who are competing regularly in European competition.
However, both Mintzlaff and Chelsea have mutually agreed to bring discussions to a close, with the West Londoners now moving ahead with their pursuit of Freund.
A recent report claims that Freund has verbally agreed to become the new sporting director at Stamford Bridge, although Salzburg chief Stephan Reiter has played down such rumours and insists that there has been no contact between the two parties.
© Reuters
Freund previously worked as a team manager and sports coordinator with the Austrian champions before succeeding Ralf Rangnick as sports director ahead of the 2015-16 season.
Speaking after Salzburg's 1-1 draw with Chelsea in the Champions League last week, Freund refused to rule out the prospect of joining the Blues.
"You should never rule anything out in football and Chelsea are such a huge club. But I'm sports director in Salzburg and I really enjoy it," Freund told Sky Austria. "Chelsea is a huge club in transition. I can't say exactly what will happen in the next few weeks and months."
"I've had exchanges with Chelsea from time to time. We spoke more often a month or two ago because they were interested in [Benjamin] Sesko," Freund added. "The new owners are interested in how we do it with young players, how we integrate them into the first team. But you do that again and again with other clubs – that's it."
Freund was in attendance at Stamford Bridge for Salzburg's draw with Chelsea, which was Graham Potter's first game in charge of the West Londoners since he left Brighton & Hove Albion earlier this month.
Oliver Thomas
