La Liga president Javier Tebas has launched an attack on Chelsea after the arrival of Enzo Fernandez saw the club's total spending for the season exceed £500million. The 22-year-old midfielder joined the Blues from Benfica in a deal which is believed to cost £106.7million.
The west Londoners will pay the Portuguese giants said fee over six instalments, the first of which is thought to be around £30m. Fernandez, who has signed an eight-and-a-half-year contract at Stamford Bridge, is now most expensive player in Chelsea's history, costing almost as much as the total spend of La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A combined (£115.5m) this month.
The Blues were not the only culprits of spending big in the January transfer window with Southampton throwing their weight around too. The Saints, who are in a relegation battle, spent around the same as all 40 top-flight Spanish and Italian clubs put together.
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As the financial gap between the Premier League and their European competitors widens, Tebas has labelled the British market as a 'doped market'. As quoted by Ben Jacobs, the La Liga president said: "The British market is a doped market.
"You can see it clearly in this winter market where Chelsea have made almost half of the signings in the Premier League. Following the history of the last few seasons, we have done some work on La Liga because [the Premier League] has lost billions of pounds in the last few years.
"And this is financed with contributions from the patrons, in this case, large American investors who finance at a loss. This does not happen in the Spanish league and neither does it happen in the German league.
"In our control of economic sustainability we do not allow contributions to cover losses in these barbaric amounts that are occurring, and that is what makes the difference in the market," he added. "We have to recognise that commercially they have a higher turnover than us, but not in the volume of this difference.
"It is quite dangerous that the markets are doped, inflated, as has been happening in recent years… that can jeopardise the sustainability of European football. We should not get really obsessed with the question of whether the Premier League pays much more.
"You have to know the cause, it is a problem. But I am happy because our clubs are economically sustainable and that means that we have a future for many years to come."
Tebas has been unhappy with the spending sprees of Premier League clubs for some time now as English sides begin to dominate the UEFA club competitions. In September, he was preparing a report for UEFA after the Premier League outspent La Liga by over 20 times.
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