Yup, the only example of the club going on the record in print. If they wanted to say that they're open to spending whatever it took, they would. It's hardly any skin off their nose. They could very easily say they will spend more than that. Instead they explicitly gave a price range.
They didn't need to, but they did. You can go believing what you want, but in the absence of any contradictory evidence, I think I'll believe what the club says about how their preference to spend less on transfers.