Mourinho: 'FFP not fair'

[sake]

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho believes that Financial Fair Play is a 'contradiction' that protects Europe's historical clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United.


Clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City are not as commercially successful so have to curb their spending to meet FFP rules; the Blues sold David Luiz, Romelu Lukaku and Demba Ba this summer to pay for the key signings of Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa.

Meanwhile, Manchester United had a summer net spend of over £100m without breaching any FFP rules as they have a much higher turnover than City or Chelsea.

Mourinho told Eurosport-Yahoo: "I think Financial Fair Play is a contradiction because, when football decided to go for Financial Fair Play it was exactly to put teams in equal conditions to compete.

"But what happened really with the Financial Fair Play is a big protection to the historical, old, big clubs, which have a financial structure, a commercial structure, everything in place based on historical success for years and years and years.

"And the 'new' clubs - I call them 'new' clubs, those with new investment - they cannot put themselves quickly at the same level. Clubs with new owners cannot immediately attack the control and the domination of these big clubs.

"Chelsea is not an old, historical, huge club - but it's also not a club with a new owner. It's a club with the same owner for more than 10 years. A club with a very important history, with great stability too.

"And at this moment I think we are just below them. I can say we are a very good club with the ambition to be a great club."