Mourinho ups bid for Lamps to £10m

The Italian club had a second bid of £7.95m turned down on Tuesday and president Massimo Moratti is ready to negotiate directly with owner Roman Abramovich in order to try and bring an end to the saga.

Inter manager Jose Mourinho is determined to be reunited with the 30-year-old and hopes his old bosses at Chelsea can be convinced to let him go.

Lampard has become increasingly desperate to leave Stamford Bridge after his demands for a five-year contract worth £150,000-a-week were ignored and could consider exploiting a FIFA rule which would allow him to avoid serving the last 12 months of his current deal.

Article 17 of FIFA regulations for the status and transfer of players states that a player can buy himself out of a contract if he signed it before he turned 28 years old and at least three years have elapsed since making the agreement.

The England international would risk the wrath of FIFA, however, as the rule also says that a player has to inform the club of his desire to leave within 15 days of the final league game of the season.

But Andy Webster escaped serious punishment when he left Hearts for Wigan after the deadline two years ago and was only banned for the first two games of the last campaign, while the Scottish club received just £150,000 compensation.

Lampard appears to be able to count on the support of Sepp Blatter, who believes no club should keep a player if he wants to leave.

Speaking about Cristiano Ronaldo's situation at Manchester United and his desire to jojn Real Madrid, the FIFA president said: "If the player wants to leave, let him leave. In football, there's too much modern slavery in transferring players or buying players. And we are trying now to intervene in such cases."

But Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck insists the club's stance won't change and the contract offer to Lampard will remain in place.

He said: "As is his right, he has decided at the moment not to accept that contract - but there is one year remaining on his current contract and we expect and hope he will honour that contract.

"Even for the course of that year there is still the opportunity for him to stay because the offer we have made him remains on the table."