by Mark Bassey

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, has said that if he signed Luke Shaw this summer from Southampton, it would have “killed” the club’s finances and causes unrest in the squad.

Shaw has since sealed a €37.5million move to Manchester United in June and is reported to earn around €200,000-a-week salary, making him the highest-paid teenager in the world.

Mourinho, who is a keen admirer of the left-back, was interested in signing the 19-year-old, but pulled out when he learnt about the amount of money involved.

“To pay a 19-year-old boy what we were being asked for, for Luke Shaw, we are dead,” he told reporters. “We would have killed our stability with financial fair play, and killed the stability in our dressing room.

“Because when you pay that much to a 19-year-old kid – a good player, fantastic player – but when you pay that amount of money, the next day we would have had players knocking on our door.

“They would have been saying ‘How is it possible I play 200 games for this club, won this and that, yet a 19-year-old comes here and gets more money than I get?’

“It would’ve killed immediately our balance, and we couldn’t allow that.”

The Portuguese coach chose to replace Ashley Cole with Felipe Luis from Atletico Madrid. The Brazilian cost the Blues around €20m, but Mourinho insists it is a better deal.

“I don’t criticise another club for paying it,” he added. “They can pay what they want. I don’t have any comment about it.

“But for my club we can say it would be very negative for us, especially when we can say Felipe is much less expensive.

“Filipe played for Brazil, won titles in Spain, won European competitions, played in the Champions League final. Yet this guy is much cheaper than an English young lad.

“And is he good for our average wages? Yes he is. Sometimes you have to make decisions.”