LISBON, Portugal: Chelsea announced plans Monday to appoint a new manager within days, after Portuguese media linked Porto's Andre Villas-Boas with the Premier League club. Portugal's national news agency Lusa and several Portuguese newspaper websites reported that Chelsea has agreed to pay the $21.5 million release clause in Villas-Boas's Porto contract. “We hope to be able to make an announcement regarding the new manager in the next few days,” Chelsea said in a statement responding to questions about Villas-Boas. Porto said it has “received no information that the clause will be activated nor the coach's willingness for it to happen.” But Porto President Jorge Pinto da Costa said he would be powerless to prevent the 33-year-old Villas-Boas leaving if the price is met to release him from a contract that runs until 2013. “If someone puts $21.5m into our bank account and he wants to leave, there's nothing we can do about it because that's the contractual undertaking,” Pinto da Costa told Portugal's Sport TV. “If that doesn't happen, he won't leave.” Villas-Boas would be replacing Italian Carlo Ancelotti, who was fired last month after his second season at Chelsea ended without a trophy. And at 33, the Portuguese is the same age as Chelsea players Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba who he worked with at Stamford Bridge under compatriot Jose Mourinho.
