In his first public statement about the sacking of Luiz Felipe Scolari as Chelsea's manager, the club's chief executive, Peter Kenyon, has confirmed that the decision was taken by Chelsea's owner, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Kenyon, who was on holiday at the time, has insisted, however, that Abramovich did discuss the sacking with him, on the telephone, during the night following Chelsea's 0–0 draw with Hull City on 9 February.

"A decision was made to which we were all party, by the owner, which is the natural and correct way for it to happen," Kenyon says, in an interview to be published next week in Esquire magazine.

The interview, in which Kenyon discusses his own career and philosophy, illustrates clearly the tensions beating at the heart of Chelsea – between Abramovich's driving impatience for success and Kenyon's conviction that money cannot buy it and long-term planning is essential. In seven trophy-laden years with Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Kenyon learned the central importance to a football club of appointing the right manager, and sticking with him.

"You look at Ferguson," Kenyon says admiringly, "he does it the way everybody would like to do it. Continuity is a big issue in football."

Having sacked the Chelsea manager he inherited, Claudio Ranieri – "ruthlessly," Kenyon admits – he identified Jose Mourinho as the man to build sustained success for the oligarch's club. When Abramovich and Mourinho began to clash, Kenyon says he played the diplomat, and that Mourinho stayed longer, until the start of the 2007-08 season, as a result.

He is frank about Mourinho's successor, confirming that Avram Grant was Abramovich's appointment, and giving the Israeli scant credit for last season, when Chelsea finished second in the Premier League and lost the Champions League final to Manchester United on penalties. Kenyon states that the club's "organisation" had "greater input" than the manager, who was "not the man" for Chelsea.

The bulk of the interview took place a fortnight before Scolari was sacked, and Kenyon was insisting then that the club would not be parting company with the manager, Brazil's former World Cup winning coach whom Kenyon believed could replicate Mourinho's two Premier League championships. Despite widespread stories that several players were dissatisfied with Scolari's methods, Kenyon said Chelsea had to show patience, give the new man time to adjust to club management, and see Chelsea into a period of stability.

"To achieve what we want to achieve, we can't just keep changing managers every year," Kenyon maintained. "That does not work."

Scolari's appointment was, he said: "For longer than the Christmas period or for 2010. Why are we surprised that a guy who managed successfully at international level, that moving to league level is a bit of a change? That was one of our considerations. What you are looking for is core competence and core values, that this guy can do the job. And you know what: he will."

Kenyon said he was confident that when the interview was published this month, Scolari would still be Chelsea's manager. But then he laughed, and said: "There's a headline in the making."

The headline which has not followed Scolari's sacking is the one some predicted then, that Kenyon himself would trail the Brazilian out of the Stamford Bridge door, because Abramovich's decision had undermined him. Kenyon has stayed, but the episode has clearly exposed the politics at Chelsea, where the chief executive, wedded to a long-term vision, is subject to his boss's more urgent instincts.

Even the original 10-year plan, to launch Chelsea into a top European club fuelled by the oligarch's oil billions yet with the famous pledge that Chelsea would become self-financing by 2010-11, was, Kenyon reveals, his idea, which he talked Abramovich into.

"Just because you have £1bn or £12bn doesn't mean you can win," Kenyon explains of their original discussions, after Abramovich bought the club from Ken Bates in 2003. "That comes with time and structure, investing in facilities as well as players."

Abramovich "signed up for the 10-year plan", Kenyon said but he added a qualification which highlights the pressure and tensions at Chelsea.

"Roman's demand was that we are not going to wait nine years nine months for success."

So Chelsea embarked on their bid for football domination, with the oligarch, who had become an overnight billionaire in Russia courtesy of Boris Yeltsin's cosy state industry sell-offs, hungry for similar instant success. Kenyon, the English business executive who worked for 25 years in industry before his seven at Manchester United, is schooled in more conventional planning including, in football, allowing the right manager the time to build an empire.

Kenyon does not deny that he was talking to Mourinho in 2004 even while Ranieri was still at Stamford Bridge.

"You have to be ruthless," Kenyon maintains. "You have to be fair, that is an important value I have, but you shouldn't mix that up with being soft."

He looks back at Mourinho's three years "with great fondness," although he claims not to regret that the Portuguese coach left, because of the need to "move on". The period since can be read as a turbulent struggle to find Mourinho's replacement. Kenyon is clear that Grant, whom Abramovich championed, was not the right calibre. Asked whether Grant deserves credit for Chelsea coming so close in both the Premier and Champions Leagues last season, Kenyon says: "That season underpinned where we as an organisation had got to. I think the manager had some input; I have to say I think the organisation had a greater input."

By that, Kenyon is understood to mean that he and his senior executives helped keep the players together after Mourinho left, giving Grant time to win them over.

Asked whether it was unfair to sack Grant, after the team performed so well under him, Kenyon answers simply "No."

When Chelsea dispensed with Grant and secured Scolari, Kenyon was happy he had a world-renowned and universally respected manager, and was adamant Chelsea would resist growing pressure to sack Scolari during the run of indifferent form.

When Abramovich did sack the manager just two weeks later, it was assumed Kenyon would have given Scolari more time, but Chelsea argue now that the decision was justified because this season was in danger of being lost and the team's spirit and performances have improved greatly under Guus Hiddink.

If Hiddink abides by his own pledge to leave Stamford Bridge at the end of the season, then, as Ferguson is entering his 24th season in charge at United, Arsène Wenger his 14th with Arsenal, Rafael Benítez his sixth at Liverpool with another five-year contract signed, Chelsea will be starting with their sixth manager since 2003. That averages one a year since Abramovich bought Chelsea for £59m and Kenyon joined him from United to tell the oligarch it would take patience, stability and 10 years to build the foundations for success.