Jose Mourinho is undermining the progress of Chelsea under Andre Villas-Boas, according to Porto president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa.
Da Costa, who has worked closely with both men, believes that the Blues squad are too close to their former boss, who departed in 2007 following a major row with owner Roman Abramovich.
Speaking to La Gazzetta, he said: "He needs time to mould his own team and he can't do that as long as there are players, as I've heard, who exchange text messages with Mourinho.
"And Abramovich knows this."
Villas-Boas has been tasked with building his own team at Stamford Bridge, but it is proving a turbulent transition and Abramovich is said to be losing patience.
The Russian billionaire reportedly witnessed the Chelsea manager being challenged by some of his squad during Sunday's extra training session.
The Porto president does not believe that Villas-Boas's reputation would suffer if he were to be sacked and he has tipped him to replace Claudio Ranieri at Inter Milan.
Robert Summerscales
