LONDON (AP) — Chelsea defender Wesley Fofana's season could be over because of a hamstring injury.
The 24-year-old Frenchman, who missed the entire 2023-24 campaign after ACL surgery, hasn't played since Dec. 1 when he was substituted out of the 3-0 win over Aston Villa.
Blues manager Enzo Maresca said Friday that Fofana's injury was worse than initially feared and that the center back will be out “for a very long time." There was no immediate plan for surgery.
“He could be out for the season,” Maresca said. “We don’t know exactly if for the entire season, but unfortunately he could be out for part of the season."
Fofana became one of the most expensive defenders in soccer history when he joined Chelsea in the summer of 2022 from Leicester for a fee of 75 million pounds ($93 million).
“For sure, for us Wes is a huge loss,” Maresca said.
Fofana made only 15 Premier League appearances in 2022-23.
“I don’t think this kind of injury can be compared to the rest," Maresca said. "This one is muscle and I think that previously he never had any muscle problems, so it’s a completely different kind of injury. It’s a bit unlucky, but he will be back and he will be back good in the way he was before he was injured.”
Chelsea is fourth in the Premier League standings, 10 points behind leader Liverpool. The Blues play at Crystal Palace on Saturday.
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FILE - Chelsea's Wesley Fofana looks on during the English Premier League soccer match between Leicester City and Chelsea at King Power stadium in Leicester, England, Saturday, March 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira, File)
VIENNA (AP) — Austrian People’s Party on Sunday nominated its General Secretary Christian Stocker as interim leader after the expected resignation of Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Austrian news agency APA reported.
Nehammer announced Saturday he would resign in the next few days after coalition talks with the Social Democrats collapsed.
Stocker, a lawyer and member of the Austrian Parliament, has served as general secretary of the People’s Party since 2022. He is seen as an experienced and calm crisis communicator who has frequently appeared in Austrian media to defend controversial decisions.
It is not clear yet who will become acting chancellor until a new government is formed.
Protected by special police forces, Nehammer walked across the square from the Chancellery toward the president’s office in Vienna.
“What is important for me is that the way of stability and the center can be continued,” he said.
Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen will make a public statement to announce the next steps once the meeting with Nehammer is over.
The 52-year-old Nehammer became chancellor and conservative party leader in 2021, after his predecessor Sebastian Kurz was forced to stand down following allegations of corruption.
In April 2022, Nehammer became the first European leader to visit Moscow and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine in February that year. Before going to Moscow, he also met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Austria was thrown into political turmoil on Friday after the liberal party NEOS pulled out of coalition talks with the center-left Social Democrats and the conservative People’s Party. On Saturday the two remaining parties, who have a razor-thin majority in Parliament, made another attempt to negotiate and form a government – but this effort also ended in failure after a few hours, with negotiators saying they were unable to agree on how to repair the budget deficit.
FILE - Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer attends a press conference in Vienna on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader, File)
