5 Craziest Football Transfers of All-time

The transfer window is one of the most important aspects of football. Before the start of the season and the battles on the pitch, various clubs tussle in the transfer market to sign multiple players.

Essentially, the blueprint for desired success starts from the transfer window, which involves numerous complex negotiations, agreements, and pre-agreements.

A lot of transfers occur regularly in the transfer market, but some remarkable stories are simultaneously amusing, shocking, and surprising. Here is an attempt to tell you some of those unique stories!

5. Didier Drogba to Chelsea

In 2004, Jose Mourinho took the hot seat of the Chelsea coach. The Champions League-winning Coach for Porto, Mourinho was looking for a good striker for his new team. He spotted Didier Drogba who was a striker for French team Olympique de Marseille and was named 2003–04 French Ligue 1 player of the season. In an interview with Bein Sports, he revealed the story behind one of Chelsea's greatest signings.

The then-Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and Jose Mourinho arranged a meeting in a restaurant concerning the team's speculations in the next summer transfer window. When Mourinho mentioned Drogba, Roman did not quite recognize him. Naturally, he wanted to know for whom he was going to pay the transfer fee.

Roman asked, "Who? Who do you want as a striker?... Who is he? Where is he playing?" and Mourinho answered, "Mr. Abramovich, pay. Pay and don't speak"

Drogba signed for Chelsea for 24 million pounds and Mourinho was not proved wrong. Playing until 2012, he scored 157 goals and etched his name as one of Chelsea's greatest strikers in the club's history. Drogba won the Premier League in his first season and won three more Premier Leagues, four League Cups, and one Champions League with Chelsea. 

4. Malcom to Barcelona

In 2018, the Brazilian hot prospect Malcom from the French club Bordeaux completed all the necessary agreements for his transfer to the Italian club AS Roma. Bordeaux agreed to the transfer and even booked a flight to Italy for Malcom. Also, the Roma fans were eagerly waiting to greet their new signing at the airport in Rome. 

But, the situation quickly changed when FC Barcelona entered the transfer negotiations with Bordeaux during the final hours of the transfer market, which is famously known as the 'Eleventh Hour'. They offered a higher fee than Roma, and with Malcolm's insistence, Bordeaux agreed to the transfer to the Spanish club. Malcolm signed for Barcelona on a five-year deal for 41 million euros. 

This was one of the craziest Transfer Hijacks that happened in the last minutes before the transfer window was closed. However, this transfer did not go as expected for Barcelona.

Malcom played just one season flaunting the Blaugrana shirt and he only scored 4 goals and provided 2 assists in 24 appearances. After that season, Barcelona sold Malcom to Zenit Saint Petersburg for 40 million euros.

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3. Emmanuel Petit to Arsenal 

The then-captain of AS Monaco, Emmanuel Petit was one of the most highly demanded players in the 1997 summer transfer window. Tottenham Hotspur, the North London club was the frontrunner in the race to sign this talented midfielder. 

Petit arrived at a preliminary meeting with Alan Sugar who was the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur back then. Alan also showed him around the club's stadium. Spurs officials thought that the signing was just a matter of time. 

While leaving the club, Petit also asked the club officials to book a taxi. The bosses arranged a taxi for him thinking that he might be going back to the airport. It is rumoured that they also paid the taxi fare of £20. 

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But Petit ended up at Highbury Stadium which was the then-home ground of Arsenal, the arch-rivals of Tottenham. Petit came to meet Arsenal chairman David Dean and coach Arsene Wenger. Wenger, who already knew Petit from his Monaco days, managed to convince him to sign for Arsenal and he signed for Arsenal that very afternoon. 

Petit later joked about the Tottenham officials calling a taxi for him and said, “If they want to send me the bill I am happy to pay it.”

Read Also | Top 10 most expensive transfers in the Premier League

2. David De Gea and Keylor Navas 

In 2015, Real Madrid and Manchester United penned down a swap deal agreement to swap their first-team goalkeepers. Real Madrid's goalkeeper Keylor Navas and Manchester United's keeper David de Gea were involved in the transfer as they were about to sign for United and Madrid respectively. 

Every piece of the puzzle was in the right place except a fax machine. This is one of the most popular conspiracy theories in football that Navas' documentation did not reach the club in Manchester in time on the deadline day of the transfer window and only a faulty fax machine was responsible for that! 

As none of the documents could be submitted before the specified time, the registration of both players was also not completed. In England, transfer registration could be completed up to a certain time after the transfer window is closed but Spain had no such facility. That is why Real Madrid could not go further with the documentation and the transfer was called off.

Both clubs blamed and issued conflicting statements against each other following this mishap. Navas was very disappointed about the failed transfer and later said, "I cried when the transfer window was closed, near my wife... I’m human and everything exploded. I was waiting in the airport even without suitcases. I was not on the plane, but I was near." 

1. Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain

The Brazilian phenomenon Neymar was displaying his best performances during his Barcelona tenure since he signed for them in 2013. He played a key role in winning two La Liga titles and a Champions League for the Blaugranas. Many of Barca fans started dreaming about Neymar to be Lionel Messi's successor at Barcelona. 

Read Also | Football facts: Brazil fails without Neymar!

Since the start of the 2017 transfer window, Paris Saint-Germain made significant efforts to build a strong team. No one could believe that Neymar was indeed leaving Barcelona and signing for PSG until a rumor that first surfaced on July 18, 2017, came true. The Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona used to dominate the transfer market but this time, there was a drastic change that shook the entire footballing world. 

Despite having signed a contract renewal with Barcelona in November 2016, Neymar's entourage informed PSG president Nasser Al Khelaifi via a phone call that Neymar was prepared to leave Barcelona in the 2017 summer transfer window. The PSG officials also reached a personal terms agreement with Neymar through some secret meetings. 

After three weeks of prolonged negotiations with Barcelona officials, PSG paid Barcelona a transfer fee of 222 million euros to sign Neymar which holds the record of the most expensive transfer of all time to this date. 

This signing was considered one of the most shocking signings that completely changed the concept of 'cash splash' in the transfer market. The transfer initiated a trend of paying excessive sums for players that altered the business in the transfer market forever.