Kenyon denies claim of Mutu vendetta

Peter Kenyon, the Chelsea chief executive, insisted yesterday that the club had no option but to sack Adrian Mutu over his failed drugs test and denied there was any vendetta to force the Romanian out of Stamford Bridge.

Kenyon revealed that Mutu rejected offers of assistance from the club, leaving Chelsea with no choice but to terminate his contract for "gross misconduct".

Kenyon said: "We fully buy into and are very supportive of awareness programmes, education and welfare. On this occasion, the same support was there for Adrian Mutu. He chose to ignore it, and as a consequence of that the rules are quite simple.

"To suggest there was no support and we left him out to dry because we wanted to get rid of him is absolute rubbish. We could have taken the decision in the summer to move Adrian Mutu out and get a transfer fee for him but we embraced him and wanted him to be part of our squad. The player has a role to play in this. If they don't want to be helped, it is a two-way process."

In response to Chelsea's decision on Friday, Mutu said: "Chelsea have destroyed me - I don't know what I am going to do. I am shocked and surprised by their decision. I didn't expect them to pay me while I was suspended but I never thought they would sack me either. Why didn't they wait to do this? Now my career is in ruins. I might as well walk away from football. What is there left for me?"

The striker feels the club should have waited until the Football Association decide on its punishment. "It is unfair," he said. "If they were going to sack me they should have done it afterwards. Why did they go public? To make an example of me? It makes it very difficult for me now."

However, there was encouragement for Mutu from Arsène Wenger, who suggested that even with a long ban his career would not be over. "He will be like everybody else once he has been suspended," the Arsenal manager said. "He has the right again to start from zero. I would then meet the player and see what he tells me. There are other players in this country who have been considered to be positive and they have played again for big clubs."