Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich is suing Mirror Group Newspapers over a Daily Mirror article that claimed towards the end of last season that manager Carlo Ancelotti had three weeks to save his job.The Daily Mirror article, published on 23 March this year, was "highly sensational", "inflammatory" and defamatory according to a writ from the club and its owner lodged at the high court in London.
"The defendant chose to publish this false and obviously damaging (and destabilising) 'story' that Mr Ancelotti had been issued with an ultimatum without bothering to check it with the claimants prior to publication, despite the obvious ease with which this could have been done and in breach of the most basic tenets of responsible journalism," the writ states.
It said that the piece suggested that Chelsea had put their manager under "intolerable pressure, peremptorily issuing him with a strict ultimatum that he had just three weeks to save his job".
The club claims that the photograph of the Chelsea manager was accompanied by the "deliberately provocative caption" which read: "Watch your step: Ancelotti is under pressure."
The writ, filed by the legal firm Harbottle & Lewis, also claims that the Daily Mirror's decision to remove the story from its website was "tantamount to acceptance that the article is false, despite the defendant's claim that this was without any admission of liability".
Chelsea and Abramovich are seeking damages from the Daily Mirror, costs and an injunction against the paper that it will not repeat the same claims.
The Daily Mirror article, published on the back and inside pages of the paper and its website was headlined: "That's Your Lotti: Blues boss had three weeks to save his job." It claimed that "senior figures" were blaming the manager for a string of poor results.
Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mirror, and Chelsea FC declined to comment.
A spokesman for the high court confirmed that the writ was "live", adding that a date for a hearing had not yet been set.
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