Bayer Leverkusen chief Rudi Voller believes Chelsea took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to sign Kai Havertz.
The Blues snapped up the Germany star for a club-record deal worth £72million potentially rising to £90million with add-ons.
But they were clever in choosing their timing, according to Leverkusen sporting director Voller, who believes the move would have been much more difficult to pull off had Chelsea tried to sign Havertz in a normal year, or at least one without the coronavirus pandemic and the financial impacts that followed it.
"[Chelsea] simply made good use of the coronavirus period," Voller told Bild.
"Next year it would have been much harder for Chelsea to get Kai. [Other interested teams] preferred to hold back because of the high transfer fee in this special and uncertain time."
"We also have significant revenue losses in times of the coronavirus.
"We will, of course, take that into account and certainly not completely reinvest the transfer fee we got for Kai Havertz.
"Although we still have to do something to maintain the level or to improve."
Havertz took Chelsea's spending beyond the £200million mark following the arrivals of Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech and Ben Chilwell, with Thiago Silva and Malang Sarr also joining for free.
He joins Chelsea after a hugely impressive season at Leverkusen, scoring 18 times and assisting nine from midfield.
