Worst transfers (bang for buck) in transfer history?

Fortitude

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Prompt:

kaiser1 said:
Easily one of the worst transfers in football history
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That's in reference to Eden Hazard's transfer to Real Madrid. He was a £89m - £103m* initial fee transfer.

You've got our own Harry Maguire in the mix, who some believe is the worst PL and United transfer of all time.

Coutinho at Barcelona.

Felix at Atletico.

Lukaku at Chelsea.

Shevchenko at Chelsea.

And so on and so forth. If you were to give, say, a top 3 or top 5 worst bang for buck transfer list of all-time, who would fill out the places for you, and in what order?

No free transfers with the likes of Alex Sanchez, please.

* Can't find a concrete initial fee. Someone feel free to confirm Hazard's transfer fee if you know it.
 
I agree Hazard has to be very high, if he doesn’t recover from injuries he might not even get a resale value, £105m for absolutely nothing.
 
Should we add Neymar to that list? 222 million (record at the time, will be surpassed, I'm sure), the heir apparent to Messi/CR, yet his greatest achievement with PSG, so far, is a lost UCL final in 2020.
 
Neymar.

Biggest fee ever and I dont think they gained anything. They've won the league which they probably would've done anyway and struggled in Europe. What he has done is added to the perception that they aren't a serious club.
 
Meh I'd say any of the none Ronaldo or Bale(albeit not the contract renewal) in the top 15 can be considered bad for business right now. Even Ronaldo to Juventus can be thrown in.... but at least Ronaldo FC is profitable.

But the 3 Barcelona ones standout for me, crippled a club, although they casually recovered from it no problem after a few months.
 
But seriously, Coutinho is the worst transfer of all time. 150 million (if not mistaken) for an aloof AMF that virtually did nothing while playing for Barca and crippled their economy (even more than Covid). By comparison, Dembele's transfer was decent; too bad injuries crippled him, but even now he's an important player for Xavi, and probably better than Traoré.

The only way Liverpool can repay Barca is by buying F.de Jong for 180 million and then failing miserably.
 
Fortitude said:
Prompt:



That's in reference to Eden Hazard's transfer to Real Madrid. He was a £89m - £103m* initial fee transfer.

You've got our own Harry Maguire in the mix, who some believe is the worst PL and United transfer of all time.

Coutinho at Barcelona.

Felix at Atletico.

Lukaku at Chelsea.

Shevchenko at Chelsea.

And so on and so forth. If you were to give, say, a top 3 or top 5 worst bang for buck transfer list of all-time, who would fill out the places for you, and in what order?

No free transfers with the likes of Alex Sanchez, please.

* Can't find a concrete initial fee. Someone feel free to confirm Hazard's transfer fee if you know it.
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After bonuses, the total Hazard fee stands at €145m to date. If Real Madrid win the CL this year it'll go up to €160m. The fee Madrid initially agreed to was €100m, but there were €10m bonuses per year associated with Real making the CL in the wake of the deal (e.g. obvious ones that more or less should have been included in the initial fee) and €15m bonuses with winning the league and/or CL (they won the league 2 years ago).
 
Fernando Torres to Chelsea. He was finished and Liverpool got 50m for him.

Paul Pogba to Manchester United, world record fee for a midfielder. 80m fee plus120m in wages, one very good season 18 - 19, almost certain to leave on a free. Hard to see 200m of value.
 
foolsgold said:
Fernando Torres to Chelsea. He was finished and Liverpool got 50m for him.

Paul Pogba to Manchester United, world record fee for a midfielder. 80m fee plus120m in wages, one very good season 18 - 19, almost certain to leave on a free. Hard to see 200m of value.
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Don't necessarily disagree with you in terms of value for money though I do think some of that poor return is mitigated by the role he played in getting us our first ever CL. From my perspective as a Chelsea fan, Shevchenko was worse between the two because of the impact it had on the Mourinho / Abramovich relationship at the time.
 
Bebe. Even though 8m or whatever it was is nothing compared to the big fees mentioned in this thread, its still the worst bang for buck transfer. Looked like he'd won a raffle to play for United. I know amateurs who with some conditioning would be more useful.
 
Felix isn't in the mix surely? He's not doing that badly

I'd chose Coutinho, both for being proper shite for Barca and helping the scousers win the league
 
Although it was a free transfer Micah Richards only played 31 times for Villa over 2015-2019, wouldn’t leave and just picked up a paycheque every week..
 
Trequarista10 said:
Bebe. Even though 8m or whatever it was is nothing compared to the big fees mentioned in this thread, its still the worst bang for buck transfer. Looked like he'd won a raffle to play for United. I know amateurs who with some conditioning would be more useful.
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He's had a decent career since he left United though. Scores some bangers.
 
Griezzman? He cost 120 millions and almost 40 more on wages. If Atletico does indeed buy him for 40, it will alleviate the total losses, but that is not certain yet.
 
It’s hazard or coutinho but special mention to Denilson going to Real Betis for a world record fee in the late 90s and completely flopping.
 
Kepa has to be up there. £71m and £150k+ (some reports have him on £170k or £190k) a week for 7 years for a funsized GK with T-Rex arms was probably the most ridiculous. I say this as he wasn't even that good for Athletic or had any amazing stats to make that transfer even seem logical at the time.

Obviously, some of those Barca ones, Hazard or some of those other Chelsea CF one's are also poor, but I still can't believe that package as it came out of nowhere and he wasn't even that highly rated/hyped.
 
Harry Maguire for me.

With a different defender we would be in fourth spot, so the transfer cost £80mill + wages + however many hundreds of millions lost by not qualifying for CL.
 
Man United, Barcelona, Chelsea and Real Madrid have most of these bad transfers. PSG and City have actually done better with the big moves despite having so much money.

I think Real got many great transfers as well.

We are probably the worst.
 
Hazard, Lakaka, Griezmann, Coutinho, Dembele

Neymar...sure because he was so damn expensive. With that said, he has played very well for PSG most of the time when he was fit. It's just that he's been injured so often, especially when his sister's birthday comes around every year.
 
Hazard by quite a distance. Especially considering his reputation in England at the time, he was an outstanding forward player for Chelsea.
 
Deery said:
Although it was a free transfer Micah Richards only played 31 times for Villa over 2015-2019, wouldn’t leave and just picked up a paycheque every week..
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But but his laugh!
 
Coutinho
Griezmann
Hazard
Dembele
Kepa
Maguire
Di Maria
Lukaku - for Utd and Chelsea
Pogba
Torres
Andy Carroll
 
Hazard to Madrid, Coutinho to Barca & Andy Carroll to Liverpool are the ones that really jump out to me.

Potentially Maguire also but I still think he does have some time to turn it around.
 
Winston Bogarde. 11 games for Chelsea in 4 years, refused to leave because he was a high earner. Chelsea demoted him to reserve and youth football and he still refused to go (rightly so). Said he doesn't care if he's the worst signing in history.
 
Pretzels81 said:
Should we add Neymar to that list? 222 million (record at the time, will be surpassed, I'm sure), the heir apparent to Messi/CR, yet his greatest achievement with PSG, so far, is a lost UCL final in 2020.
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Nah, you can't say someone who has been a very good player and at least a top 10 in the world player was a flop because they didn't win the CL.
 
Reapersoul20 said:
Harry Maguire for me.

With a different defender we would be in fourth spot, so the transfer cost £80mill + wages + however many hundreds of millions lost by not qualifying for CL.
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Yet with Maguire playing 98% of games we finished 3rd and 2nd in the league, the only time since Fergie retired that we qualified for the CL two years on the bounce.
 
Pretzels81 said:
Should we add Neymar to that list? 222 million (record at the time, will be surpassed, I'm sure), the heir apparent to Messi/CR, yet his greatest achievement with PSG, so far, is a lost UCL final in 2020.
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No chance
 
Pretzels81 said:
Should we add Neymar to that list? 222 million (record at the time, will be surpassed, I'm sure), the heir apparent to Messi/CR, yet his greatest achievement with PSG, so far, is a lost UCL final in 2020.
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The other thing about Neymar is how often he isn't available for PSG. He's never played more than 50% of their league games since he's been there and his overall appearance record since has been 30,28,27,31 games. He's playing in 50-60% of their fixtures generally.
 
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Maguire shouldn't be in the conversation. He's at least been part of a few decent league finishes. The worst transfers have to be the complete abominations like Hazaez or even Sanchez (even though he was on a free his wages and the expectations were huge).
 
1. Neymar - Not even a question
2. Hazard.
3. Coutinho
4. Griezmann
5. Messi
6. Kepa
7. Maguire
8. Lukaku
9. Dembele
10. Torres
11. Pogba
12. Carroll
13. Felix
14. Kaka
15. Keita
 
I don't think Neymar should be included. His average performance level at PSG is miles ahead of just about every other player mentioned who were mostly complete disasters unable to find any real form.

Similarly Maguire was obviously over-priced but he at least had some solid spells and again don't think he warrants inclusion here.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Yet with Maguire playing 98% of games we finished 3rd and 2nd in the league, the only time since Fergie retired that we qualified for the CL two years on the bounce.
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I still think he has been absolutely awful. Rival fans are praying he stays with us the same way they did with Ole at the end :).

People are entitled to their opinions but all I'll say is that outside of this message board, next to nobody would bat an eyelid at Maguire being very high up this list.
 
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