There have been rumors that Chelsea Manager Jose Mourinho might have to pay a new transfer record for a Defender if he wishes to land Everton’s John Stones. He’s already had a £20 million bid rejected. No one can say for certain what the fee will be but you know it will be very expensive if Chelsea are able to bring Pedro over from Barcelona. Raheem Sterling, who had just 7 goals and 7 assists last season, was sent to Manchester City from Liverpool for £49 million.
There will be just 17 million left of that kitty when Liverpool drops £32 million on Christian Benteke; the second most expensive signing in club history. Benteke has struggled with consistency, and he is not an elite, world class player. Actually, you have to deduct the 9 million to QPR that’s part of the deal and the 5 million loyalty bonus Sterling will get for not lodging a transfer request, so that puts us at 3 million.
It is within this context that Jose Mourinho made the following comments:
“I think the market is inflated. I only have to look at what is happening in my own country. [Portugal] is a country in trouble generally – socially, politically, economically. It’s a country in trouble, people are suffering a lot, there have been a lot of cuts, old people have trouble with their pensions, tax is higher, salaries, jobs, everything.”
“This season Porto pay €20m for Imbula, they give Casillas an amazing salary, Sporting are paying millions for coaches and players. Football breaks every situation. This season we are saying: ‘Oh, look at this amount for Sterling.’ But it will be worse next season. Next season someone will pay £60m. Football is like this – one season is financial fair play, the next is a way to dribble [past] the financial fair play. It doesn’t upset me. I’m happy with the way that we are doing things I am happy with the challenge of fighting against this power. I told the players that we are the same team and the others are not the same team. I cannot stop opponents to make an assault to the banks and spend millions and millions. I cannot stop that. I cannot stop [that] the others have a feeling that we are playing against the champions.
“The others are spending. The others are buying a lot to try to be better than us and the fact that we are the same – we are changing a goalkeeper for another one, a striker for another one.”
While Mourinho is completely right about the market spinning out of control, isn’t this just the pot calling the kettle black? Chelsea is one of the biggest, richest clubs in the whole world. The Blues owe a great deal of their success to the money Mourinho has been able to spend. If Chelsea Owner Roman Abramovich didn’t have such deep pockets where would Mourinho be right now? In his first year at Stamford Bridge in 2004-05 Mourinho spent 159 million Euro on new players.
During his season back at Chelsea in 2013-14 The Special One spent 61 million Euro.
In other words, Mourinho didn’t get it all done via organic, homegrown players. For him to call out capitalists as mercenaries makes him look hypocritical and self-serving.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
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