Inside Football: Bates Denies Involvement as Fraud Case Goes to Court ; Chelsea Chairman Says He Had No Knowledge of or Shares in Company at Centre of Alleged Bank Fraud in United States

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KEN BATES, the Chelsea chairman, has emphatically told a court in New York that he was not involved in a $20m (pounds 11.2m) bank fraud alleged to have been perpetrated by a company, Chelsea Acquisitions, of which he was named as a shareholder.

Giving sworn evidence at the United States embassy in London last September, which was videotaped and played in the major US criminal trial recently, Bates said he owned no part of Chelsea Acquisitions and had never even heard of the company before he was visited by the Metropolitan Police Fraud Squad, which was helping the FBI with its investigation. Facing questions from attorneys for the US Department of Justice and the …