Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri has claimed he would be happy to accept a pay cut if it ensured Premier League clubs received more reasonable space between their fixtures.
The Blues hosted West Ham last evening in the first of their four matches in the space of only 11 days.
Chelsea travel to Slavia Prague for the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final on Thursday, and a Premier League trip to Liverpool precedes the return leg against the Czech team next week at Stamford Bridge.
I’m not able to understand why we have to play on Monday," Sarri says
“In Serie A, teams play on Friday [before a European game]. If a team is involved in the Europa League away from home, they can then ask to play their next Serie A match on a Monday. It’s a Premier League decision. They showed in the last season that they are the best because they are able to sell English football in the best way. It’s not so important for me, the salary.”
Pushed on whether he personally would take a wage cut, he said: “Yes, of course. It is important to have fun, for me. To work without working because, for me, it’s not work.”
Sarri suggested Chelsea did request a change to the timing of last night’s fixture.
“I think so,” Sarri said. “I think the answer was that, also in the Champions League, the English teams have only three days (to prepare). I think that, in this case, it was easy to solve the problem, but the situation is this, so we can only adapt.”
The Italian is, however, realistic enough to know his players may not share his position in accepting a lower salary.
“For the players, no, because the Premier League is the best championship in the world. So we need to have very strong players. The Premier League was able to sell in the best way possible the Premier League (rights), so in England we are lucky. We can buy the best players in the world, we have the best championship in the world, and so we have to accept we have to play every three days.”
