Chelsea will hold off completing £22m Romelu Lukaku deal until new manager is appointed

Romelu Lukaku is moving closer to a £22 million move to Chelsea but no deal will be completed until a new manager is in place at Stamford Bridge.

Lukaku has said that he wants his future sorted out before he begins the exams next week that form the final part of his High School diploma.

The Belgian wonderkid has long been near the top of Chelsea’s summer shopping list and the Londoners have been in negotiations with his club, Anderlecht, for a number of months.

However, Chelsea have told Anderlecht that they are in no position to sign Lukaku while their managerial position remains unresolved.

“Chelsea are looking for a manager before signing a player,” a source close to the negotiations told Goal.com. “What kind of signal would it send for them to sign a player before they have a manager in place?”

Chelsea’s hunt for a successor to Carlo Ancelotti could hinge on the result of Friday’s Euro 2012 qualifier between Belgium and Guus Hiddink-managed Turkey, a game that, coincidentally, Lukaku will play in.

Four days later, the player, who only turned 18 last month, is due to sit a geography exam as part of his diploma in tourism and public relations at a Brussels college.

Lukaku said: “I would like my future sorted out by June 5 because my exams start the following day, and I don’t want any other distractions that time.”

Anderlecht are resigned to losing the centre forward, who turned 18 last month, but have quoted suitors a £26m asking price.

It is more likely that the Belgian club will accept around £17.5m up front for the striker, plus another £4.5m of performance-related add-ons.

Anderlecht general manager Herman van Holsbeeck remained tight-lipped on Chelsea's interest in his prize asset. "There are several clubs that want this player, that is all I can say," he told Goal.com on Tuesday. "Romelu is with his national team and it is quiet around him. It is not good for us to talk a lot in newspapers or websites. It is important we are quiet."

The player himself accepts that he may have to begin life at Stamford Bridge, where Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba, Nicolas Anelka, Salomon Kalou and Daniel Sturridge already head a queue of proven attacking talent, watching on from the sidelines, but aims to stake his claim for regular first-team football.

Asked if his future was likely to be settled next week, Lukaku said: “That could be so, yes. It is going to be one of the top two or three clubs in England, or else I stay at Anderlecht. I want to leave because I want to score goals in stadia full of 50,000 people, and to play in the Champions League.

“If I go to a top club, in the beginning I know I will be on the bench, sometimes playing 10 or 15 minutes. That will be it at the start. But my goal is that, in those 15 minutes, I will grab my chance and do better every time so that, by the end of the season when it gets really important, and there are a lot of games, I will be ready.”