Don't you love it when the big clubs flashing the cash mess up with a signing? They spend most of their time blowing smaller clubs out of the water with huge transfer bids, but sometimes this can come back to haunt them. So now it's time to highlight when big money transfer go wrong...
Gaizka Mendieta - £29 Million, Valencia to Lazio
In England he's remembered as a half decent midfielder who played for Middlesborough. But before his move to England Mendieta had a dark past... He was an extremely talented and successful midfielder who made his name playing for Valencia in the Champions League. After these successes, Lazio - one of the giants of Italian football at the time, came in and spent €48 million (£29 million) to acquire his services. However, he only managed 20 league games for the Italians and was soon sent out on loan firstly to Barcelona and then to Middlesborough, who he eventually moved to on a permanent basis for an undisclosed fee.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic - £39 Million + Samuel Eto'o, Inter to Barcelona
The sight of Ibrahimovic kissing the Barcelona badge is cringeworthy in itself... Ibra lasted one season at Barcelona playing 42 games and scoring 22 goals. That is a perfectly decent scoring record, but Ibra's performances for Barca is not what makes this transfer so bad. The fact is that this was a terrible piece of business by Barcelona as they parted with a huge amount of money along with goal machine Samuel Eto'o for a player who would only stay for one season. He is currently on loan at AC Milan who have a clause in the contract allowing them to sign him for £24 million which leaves Barca with a loss of £15 million...
Juan Sebastian Veron £29 million, Lazio to Manchester United
This signing showed Manchester Uniteds intention to buy some of Europe's established talent. My word did it go wrong. From the very beginning it appeared as if Veron seemed uncomfortable in the Premier League. He was undeniably a very talented and skillful player but his slow relaxed style of play clearly didn't suit the hustle and bustle nature of the Premiership. Veron played for two seasons at United but he failed to win over the supporters and the media. It appeared as if his only fan was Alex Ferguson who famously defended him by telling reporters "Veron's a ******* great player. Youse are all ******* idiots". In 2003 Veron was sold to big spending rivals Chelsea but once again he failed to make an impact. He spent a year at Chelsea before heading back to Serie A and joining Inter Milan.
Andriy Shevchenko - £30 million, AC Milan to Chelsea
Andriy Shevchenko - £30 million, AC Milan to Chelsea
He played 47 league games for Chelsea over 3 years and scored 9 goals. For a multimillion pound striker this was never going to be an acceptable return. Before he joined Chelsea he was one of the most feared strikers in Europe but by the end of his spell at the club no-one wanted him and he left on a free transfer...
Adrian Mutu - £15.8 million, Parma to Chelsea
Another Chelsea player. The transfer fee in the grand scheme of things isn't too much but what he gave the club in terms of performance was probably worth about a tenth of what they paid for him. He played 27 league games in the year he was at the club scoring 6 goals. That's a very poor return but what made his signing even worse was the fact that he failed a drugs test which found cocaine in his system. Chelsea ended up sacking him and the FA banned him for 7 months and fined him £20,000.
Conclusion
So there you have it. These are, in my mind, five of the worst big money transfers. I know that there have been many others at various clubs and if you know of any, feel free to share them with us at I Luv Football. As usual thanks for reading.
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