Santos president Andres Rueda has explained the circumstances around Chelsea’s imminent signing of Deivid Washington.
The Blues have beaten Monaco to the 18-year-old striker on an initial £14.5million deal, with £2.5m of add-ons that Rueda has described as effectively “mandatory”.
Washington is not the first Santos star to leave this summer, after Angelo Gabriel joined Chelsea for £13m amid Roma’s £16m interest in striker Marcos Leonardo.
“It was already known, it was in the planning, that we would need to sell at least two players to balance the club’s accounts,” Rueda told Brazilian outlet A Tribuna.
“That wouldn’t have happened if Marcos Leonardo had been sold, then Deivid wouldn’t have been sold, but it took a while for Marcos’ proposal to arrive.
“It arrived at the very end, when the window was already on the verge of closing. So we had to take action and opted to sell Deivid.
“Football has a lower revenue than expenditure. If you start today with zero commitments, a year from now you will have a deficit of £12.5m to £16m. How do you cover that? Selling players, there’s no [other] way.
“We went almost three years without significant player sales. We sold Angelo on terms we believe are good for the club but nowadays nobody buys players for cash anymore, it’s over three or four years. This doesn’t solve our cash flow problem and we think Deivid’s value is spot on.”
Chelsea are set to announce Washington’s arrival this week with the teenager set to sign for sister club Strasbourg on loan for the new season.
