Chelsea's Kenyon confident Robben will stay

Dutch winger Arjen Robben is likely to stay at Chelsea next season despite overseas buying interest from clubs such as Real Madrid, Chelsea's chief executive Peter Kenyon said yesterday.

"Arjen is very happy, he's just got married and wants to demonstrate and prove what a great player he is and still believes the Premier League is the best opportunity," Kenyon said. "I'm confident he'll be there next season."

Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon said in early June he was in talks with Chelsea and Robben about a transfer.

Kenyon played down British media speculation that Chelsea might make a £12 million bid for Lyon winger Florent Malouda and let Robben go to finance it.

Kenyon said there would be no big summer signings.

"By Chelsea standards it's been very quiet. That's probably the headline... both in terms of names and in terms of big spending," he said. "We've had three or four so-called free transfers."

Chelsea have spent 250-300 million pounds on new players since Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich took over in 2003. It posted losses of £80 million in February.

"We're very confident that we'll break even by 2009-10," Kenyon said.

Kenyon was speaking in Hong Kong, where Chelsea launched a new merchandising deal with an online retailer to distribute and sell the club's merchandise across Asia.