Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho claims he pulled out of a bid to sign left-back Luke Shaw this summer because his wage demands would have "killed" the club.
Shaw became the fourth-most expensive defender in history whenManchester United signed him earlier this month from Southampton for £27m.
Mourinho says Shaw's reported wages of around £100,000 a week were too large.
"If we pay to a 19-year-old boy what we were being asked for, to sign Luke Shaw, we are dead," said Mourinho.
"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?"'