Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho feels that the Financial Fair Play Regulations of UEFA have given an advantage to globally popular clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester United and transformed the Blues into a selling club.
Ever since the take-over of the West London club by Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2003, Chelsea have been known to heavily invest in the transfer market, spending a fortune on players – including Andriy Shevchenko, Fernando Torres, Eden Hazard – over the years.
However, of late, the Blues have curbed their flamboyance in the transfer market after the introduction of UEFA's Financial Fair Play Regulations in the 2011/12 season.
The FFP is basically a committee to monitor club's transfer activities and make sure they don't spend more than they earn.
While the FFP regulations have had a deep impact on clubs like Chelsea, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, it seems to have worked out well for sides like Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
"When UEFA decided for financial fair play, they were trying to do this to make every team [have] equal possibilities, but the reality is that the big teams, the big clubs, the clubs with more years at the top with more fan base around the world, with more income, are the players that keep being the big spenders," Mourinho told ESPN.
"So Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester [United] - all these huge teams - I think they have an advantage."
Despite enduring a very poor season under David Moyes last season, the club still managed to sign some mammoth sponsorship deals with Adidas and Chevrolet.
Having made a hefty profit from these deals, the Red Devils were able to freely spend on transfer this summer, spending in excess of £150 million on the likes of Angel Di Maria (£59.7m), Ander Herrera (£28.8m), Marcos Rojo (£16m), Luke Shaw (£14m), Daley Blind (£16m), and Radamel Falcao (£6m loan).
And Mourinho believes that Chelsea will now never be able to equal Manchester United in the transfer market.
"We are making money to be able to spend money. In every transfer window Chelsea is losing players, is selling players," Mourinho told ESPN.
Although the Blues bought in the likes of Cesc Fabregas (£30 million), Diego Costa (£32 million) and Filipe Luis (£15.8 million) this summer, they were forced to sell David Luiz (£40 million), Romelu Lukaku (£28 million) and Demba Ba (£8 million) to balance their check books.
Due to this reason Mourinho insists that Chelsea have become a selling club rather than a spending one.
"So Chelsea in this moment is not a spender - Chelsea in this moment is making more money in transfers than the money we spend."
