Mourinho not surprised by Fabregas start

Jose Mourinho says UEFA's financial fair play regulations have given Manchester United an advantage and turned Chelsea into a selling club.

Chelsea became one of Europe's most powerful clubs after Roman Abramovich's takeover in 2003, which led to heavy investment in the squad, including the arrival of Andriy Shevchenko for over £30 million in 2006 - a British record at the time - and the signing of Fernando Torres for £50m in 2011.

Manchester United signed Angel Di Maria for a British record £59.7 million fee © PA Photos Enlarge

More recently, though, Chelsea have taken a more conservative approach to adhere to financial fair play, which was introduced from the 2011-12 season in an attempt to prevent clubs in UEFA competitions from spending more than they earn.

Speaking to Eurosport-Yahoo, Mourinho said Chelsea would no longer be able to break the British transfer record, which was set when United paid £59.7m for Angel Di Maria last month, and added: "We are making money to be able to spend money. In every transfer window Chelsea is losing players, is selling players."

He highlighted the sales of Juan Mata, David Luiz and Romelu Lukaku over the last year and said: "So Chelsea in this moment is not a spender - Chelsea in this moment is making more money in transfers than the money we spend."

United spent £37.1m on Mata in January, and have since broken the Premier League record for spending in a summer after paying out £153m in deals for Di Maria, Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera, Marcos Rojo, Daley Blind and Radamel Falcao.

Mourinho said traditional giants like United were benefiting from the restrictions faced by other clubs, which struggle to compete in terms of the income brought in as a result of their global fan bases.

"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," he said.

"So Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester [United] - all these huge teams - I think they have an advantage."

Nonetheless, he said Chelsea were "so happy with the way we are doing things, with this great balance between the income and the money we can spend. We are so happy with that profile of club we are, we don't want to change."

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