The Sunday Guardian

Sule says he rejected Chelsea as offer was not stimulatin­g

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Former Chelsea target Niklas Sule insists it was an easy decision to reject the Premier League champions for Bayern Munich, admitting the offer from Antonio Conte’s side was not stimulatin­g enough.

The centre-back will join up with Bayern Munich this summer having agreed a five-year deal to join the Bundesliga champions back in January in a deal worth around £17m.

The Blues were keen for the Hoffenheim defender to replace John Terry at Stamford Bridge but the 21-year-old felt it was not the right time to go to England and the Bayern’s status as one of the biggest clubs in Europe was too tempting to turn down.

“There was interest from Chelsea, but Bayern are among the top three clubs in the world so I didn’t have to think about it long,” Sule said to Bild.

“Going to England would have come too early for me. No club from England could have stimulated me as the offer from Bayern did.”

× Meanwhile, Manchester United have condemned the actions of four “stupid and irresponsi­ble” fans who illegally broke into Old Trafford.

The four young men are all freerunner­s and gained access on the early hours of last Sunday, with the city still on high alert following the Manchester terror attacks two weeks ago.

The footage shows the freerunner­s climb onto the Old Trafford roof, run across the pitch and sit in the dugout, all without being challenged by security. he group finally leave the stadium through a door when they are finally noticed by security while they made their escape. The intrusion occurred only hours before more than 70,000 people turned up for Michael Carrick’s testimonia­l game at the stadium, with police called just before 7am, after the youngsters had left the premises.

A spokesman for Manchester United said: “In the early hours of last Sunday morning, stadium security chased four urban climbers off the premises at Old Trafford after they had gained access to the stadium illegally, by scaling the outer works area of the stadium and gaining access to the roof.

“Such efforts appear to be motivated by a trend for similar actions on social media and followed a successful attempt to climb to the roof of a city centre hotel earlier that day. “Their stupid and irresponsi­ble actions, especially at such a sensitive time, put last Sunday’s game at risk and occupied both club staff and, more importantl­y, police officers in hours of work to make sure that the stadium was safe to stage the match.

“The response of the police was outstandin­g. With over 130,000 people coming into the Old Trafford area on Sunday, the last thing they needed was to have their time wasted in this way. But as ever, they conducted a thorough search of the stadium to confirm it was safe to hold the match.

“The security of fans attending games at Old Trafford is our highest priority and we work constantly with all local authoritie­s and security contractor­s and advisors to keep all security measures, systems and protocols under constant review. The fact that the necessary checks were carried out in time for the game to go ahead is testament to those close relationsh­ips.”

The incident, which was posted on YouTube, is the latest security concern for United, after two students managed to spend the night in Old Trafford in a bid to watch the game against Arsenal the following day, having wandered off from a stadium tour.

On the final day of the 2016/17 season, the stadium needed to be evacuated after a bomb scare, only for it to later emerge that the device found was a dummy device left behind after a training exercise.

The teenagers also visited St Ann’s square to pay their respects to the 23 who died in the terror attack at Manchester Arena and filmed the armed guards.

They also snuck into the Hilton Hotel and the Mercure Hotel, managing to tightrope the edge of the wall on the roof of the latter. THE INDEPENDEN­T

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