Benfica boss hits out at Chelsea for Enzo Fernandez pursuit

Benfica coach Roger Schmidt has branded Chelsea “disrespectful” over their pursuit of Enzo Fernandez and accused them of “pretending” they have been able to pay the midfielder’s €120 million launch clause.

ESPN reported on Wednesday that there have been blended messages across the cope with sources near Benfica indicating that Chelsea had proven a willingness to satisfy and even surpass the 21-year-old’s clause whereas these near the Premier League membership performed down any stories they might conform to that valuation.

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It is known Chelsea had intimated at one stage throughout negotiations that they may pay a better determine in return for paying the charge in a sequence of annual instalments.

However, Benfica are demanding your complete charge up entrance and as talks proceed with Fernandez eager on a swap to Stamford Bridge, Schmidt voiced his frustration at Chelsea’s strategy throughout a Thursday information convention forward of Benfica’s Primeira Liga match towards Portimonense.

“We do not want to sell Enzo,” Schmidt mentioned. “Not me, not the president, nobody.

“We know, everybody is aware of he has a clause within the contract and if the participant desires to depart and somebody comes and pays the clause after all we can not work towards that. Then possibly we are going to lose the participant.”

“There is a membership who desires our participant. They know we do not need to promote the participant. They tried to get the participant on their facet and so they know that they will solely get this participant once they pay the clause.

“So it is a very clear situation. What the club is doing, who wants to buy Enzo, is disrespectful against all of us, against Benfica and I cannot accept what they are doing.

“To make the participant loopy after which to fake they will pay the clause and later they need to negotiate, I believe this isn’t what I perceive a couple of good relationship between golf equipment who possibly need to talk about concerning the participant. So that is what I can say about the entire matter of Enzo and I can’t reply additional questions.”

Sources have advised ESPN that whereas Chelsea imagine they’ve vital headroom of their compliance with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play guidelines, the try to barter a decrease first instalment is pushed partly by an acknowledgment the membership spent greater than £270m in the summertime and need to make investments closely once more within the switch window.