SOCCER: Chelsea have lodged an £8.4million (€12.2million) breach-of-contract claim against Adrian Mutu with the English Premier League.

The Romania striker was dismissed from the London club last October for gross misconduct after testing positive for cocaine. After a Football Association hearing in November he was suspended from all football for seven months. The ban runs until May 18th.

Chelsea claim Mutu's actions have forced them to write off a £13million asset and are seeking compensation from the player under Fifa rules. The first step is to submit to a Premier League hearing, expected at the end of this month, at which the club will seek to establish Mutu's liability.

That hearing - understood to be chaired by Robert Reid QC, who presided over Dennis Wise's appeal against his sacking for gross misconduct from Leicester in 2002 and found in the club's favour - will also consider the legality of Mutu's dismissal.

One nominee to join the three-person hearing panel was the Professional Footballers' Association chief executive, Gordon Taylor, but his involvement was overruled by Chelsea as he had represented Mutu at his original FA hearing. An alternative panellist must now be sought.

Chelsea have retained Jonathan Taylor, the head of Hammonds' sports law group, to represent them.

Should the panel accept Chelsea's claims over Mutu's liability, the case will then proceed to Fifa's dispute resolution chamber.

Article 21 of Fifa's regulations for players under the age of 28 states that "if there is a unilateral breach without just cause or sporting just cause during the first three years (of the contract), sports sanctions shall be applied and compensation payable".

The chamber could extend Mutu's ban. In 2003, Fifa handed Argentina's Ariel Ortega a £6.6million fine and a six-month ban for breach of contract after he walked out on Fenerbahce.

However, Fifa has already granted Mutu permission to train with any club, which he is doing at Juventus, and a sports law expert suggested last night that Chelsea's claim may be unsound. "I know the precedents (with Ortega), but that was a deliberate refusal to return to play," said Nick Bitel, of sports and media law firm Max Bitel Greene.

"English contract law does not allow for penal clauses; you have to prove the loss following a breach of contract (to seek compensation). But Chelsea are saving a massive amount on wages. What is their actual loss? Some would say they have gained."

But it is thought that Chelsea will seek to bind Mutu with a contract accepting that, whatever the findings, both parties will abide by the ruling without recourse to the civil courts.

Meanwhile, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho says he will change his behaviour, but not his personality in order to adapt to English football. The headline-grabbing Portuguese coach, ordered from the dugout after a shushing gesture to the crowd at the English League Cup final, said yesterday he did not seek the limelight though he was not afraid to say what he thought.

"I won't change my personality but will try to understand what is possible and what is not possible.

"This gesture I know now I cannot do it in England," he said.