Chelsea took advantage and ‘made good use’ of Covid-19 pandemic to secure transfer of Havertz, claims Leverkusen chief

CHELSEA made good use of the coronavirus period, according to Bayer Leverkusen chief Rudi Voller.

The Blues snapped up Kai Havertz, 21, from Voller’s club in an £89million deal.

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And they also splashed the cash on Timo Werner, Ben Chilwell, Hakim Ziyech.

Thiago Silva was also brought in on a free.

And despite most clubs in Europe pinching pennies because of the financial impact of coronavirus, German legend Voller thinks the Blues have been shrewd in their business.

He told Bild: “Chelsea simply made good use of the coronavirus period.

“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.

“And we will, of course, take that into account and certainly not completely reinvest the transfer fee we got for Kai.

“Although we still have to do something to maintain the level or to improve.”

It recently emerged Havertz reportedly allowed Leverkusen to KEEP his £9million transfer bonus to ensure he got his move to Chelsea.

Sport Bild detail how Havertz’s interest in joining Chelsea was based around his love of manager Frank Lampard.

The German is said to have been in contact with the former England star for a number of months.

And the transfer came to a head in late August when Chelsea transfer fixer Marina Granovskaia sat down with Leverkusen bosses in the south of France.

With the Premier League side happy to pay an initial £72m up front, negotiations became focused on what would trigger the additional bonus payments.

Factors such as title wins and qualifying for the Champions League were divvied up to complete the £89m fee, ten per cent of which was due to go to Havertz.

It is claimed that the player waived this contract clause in order to help Bayer along with the sale.

However, Havertz is reportedly due to cash in later on in his Chelsea career, as he will instead be due a considerable chunk of the bonus add-ons if the Blues are successful.

The Aachen-born ace is certainly getting a fair deal with his weekly wage purported to be £310,000-a-week, on a five-year contract.