Chelsea come down hard on errant Ashley Cole

As Chelsea prepare for their Champions League clash with Inter Milan this week they are attempting to clean up their act off the field after a series of scandals involving high-profile player.

It is reported that Ashley Cole could be fined up to £400,000 and may even be forced out of the club after yet more tabloid headlines about his private life at the weekend. His alleged indiscretions come in the wake of the John Terry scandal, and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is angry about his club's increasingly sleazy image.

The defender, who is currently out of action with a broken ankle, will be called in to face Chelsea's chief executive Ron Gourlay after it was claimed that he got senior club officials to help cover his tracks after sleeping with a woman on a pre-season tour of America last year.

Last week it was claimed that he had smuggled a secretary at Liverpool Football Club, Vicki Gough, into the team hotel for sex before two away games last season and now he has been accused of another liaison with an American Ann Corbitt while the team was in Seattle last summer.

Reports over the weekend even suggested Cole got Chelsea's head of media, Steve Atkins, to advise Corbitt on how to keep the story out of the papers when she was approached by a journalist.

It seems that the latest revelations were the final straw for Cole's wife, pop star Cheryl Cole, who is now expected to announced that their marriage is over.

The timing of the scandal could not be worse for Cole or Chelsea. Although manager Carlo Ancelotti has declared that he does not mind who his players go to bed with, Abramovich has clearly decided that he does. And last week Gourlay addressed the entire first-team squad to remind them of their responsibilities.

The Blues also have the small matter of a Champions League showdown with their former manager Jose Mourinho this week and he has been stoking the rivalry ahead of the game.

Mourinho, who has not seen any of his clubs lose a home game for eight years, suggested that Chelsea were not that great a team, despite the fact they are top of the Premier League.

"Of course when a team is strong, strong, strong it doesn't lose so many matches, so many points," he said. ·