The Worst Transfers of All-Time

[S E P H]

Ranking the 30 worst transfers in soccer history (Part 1)

www.thescore.com

Ranking the 30 worst transfers in soccer history (Part 2)

The transfer window is a time of hope and excitement. A time to make transformative additions that can revive a struggling team or put trophy-chasing sides over the top. It's also a time where expensive, crippling mistakes are made. For every brilliant deal and shrewd piece of business, there...

www.thescore.com

The 10 worst transfers in soccer history, ranked

The transfer window is a time of hope and excitement. It's a time to make transformative additions that can revive a struggling team or put trophy-chasing sides over the top. It's also a time when expensive, crippling mistakes are made. For every brilliant deal and shrewd piece of business...

www.thescore.com

10. Paul Pogba to Man United for 105 million Euros
09. Nicolas Pepe to Arsenal for 80 million
08. Kaka to Real Madrid for 67 million
07. Neymar to Al-Hilal for 90 million
06. Kepa Arrizabalaga to Chelsea for 80 million
05. Romelu Lukaku to Chelsea for 113 million
04. Antoine Griezmann to Barcelona for 120 million
03. Ali Dia to Southampton for a free
02. Eden Hazard to Real Madrid for 100 million
01. Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for 150 million


Good list for everything except #3, which was when I was way too young. I would echo that Coutinho is definitely the worst transfer ever in football history.

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[hatterson]

#3 either needs to be #1 for the pure incompetence of it or it shouldn't' be on the list at all.

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

Way way way too much recency bias on this list.

Coutinho is an unambiguous #1. I think it's genuinely impossible to make an argument for any other transfer.

Hazard in 2019 was a 100 million pound player. The move obviously went disastrously, but it was fair value for the player. Coutinho was never anything close to a 150 million pound player. He was inconsistent and mercurial, frequently infuriating.

Coutinho's fee was 50% higher for a player who was 50% worse.

 

[gary69]

Winston Bogarde to Chelsea needs to be on the list.

 

[erikhamren]

Neymar to psg

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

Just read the full 30. This is a terrible list, LOL.

 

[les Habs]

Oh boy. The posts on this forum.

I’ll start out by saying that Coutinho was awful and I’m not surprised he’d be argued as #1. That said, all of these depend on how you look at them. For me, Hazard is worse than Coutinho and it’s pretty obvious:

-Hazard’s status prior to joining Madrid doesn’t change the fact that it was a disastrous transfer.
-Per Transfermarkt, Coutinho didn’t cost 150 million, he cost 135 million.
-Coutinho did notably more for Barca than Hazard ever did for Madrid, and that’s despite going out on loan twice.
-Barca recouped some of that fee with the loan to Bayern (and possibly with the loan to Villa, but Transfermarkt isn’t assigning a fee to the latter loan). Then they also recouped some of that selling the player to Villa.

So in the end they cost about the same (unless there was some big discrepancy in their wages) and Coutinho did notably better with Barca than Hazard did with Madrid.

 

[gary69]

Just read the full 30. This is a terrible list, LOL.

Took a look of the full list as well. Doing so was a mistake, as seeing Drinkwater's name again and that terrible transfer brought ill feelings.

 

[les Habs]

Neymar to psg

They paid too much and the player made a big mistake from a footballing standpoint making that move, but he did well there. Bale to Madrid was worse than that.

 

[les Habs]

Griezmann also way too high on that list. IMO his stats at Barca, which were good, covered his performances, but he still wasn’t as bad as other deals. The club never should have paid that in the first place, but in the end they did recoup 25% of that fee in loaning and then selling him.

 

[S E P H]

Way way way too much recency bias on this list.

Is that the case or has money and football exploded in the past 10-15 years and that's where all these insane huge money transfers have come from/in?

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Coutimho and dembouz are 1 and 2 for me

 

[S E P H]

I’ll start out by saying that Coutinho was awful and I’m not surprised he’d be argued as #1. That said, all of these depend on how you look at them. For me, Hazard is worse than Coutinho and it’s pretty obvious:

Bro, the Coutinho transfer pretty much made Liverpool the team they have been for the past eight years. Your club financed Firminho's Sons and Daughters College education, Salah's Sons and Daughters College education, VvD, Mane, Diaz, TAA, Robertson, Alisson, Henderson, Gakpo, Jota, etc. You lot are the Red Cross.

Coutimho and dembouz are 1 and 2 for me

I am surprised they don't have Dembele in the top ten as well.

 

[gary69]

Is that the case or has money and football exploded in the past 10-15 years and that's where all these insane huge money transfers have come from/in?

You have to adjust for inflation though, the prices about 25 ago are about double in today's money.

Didn't watch a single match from Tevez in China, but that transfer fee and salary of 615 000 a week were absolutely ridiculous for him.

 

[les Habs]

Agreed on the recency bias argument. That said, Antony is worse than some in the top 10.

Bro, the Coutinho transfer pretty much made Liverpool the team they have been for the past eight years. Your club financed Firminho's Sons and Daughters College education, Salah's Sons and Daughters College education, VvD, Mane, Diaz, TAA, Robertson, Alisson, Henderson, Gakpo, Jota, etc. You lot are the Red Cross.


I am surprised they don't have Dembele in the top ten as well.

Please refrain from using terms like “Bro”. As for the rest of it, irrelevant.

Dembele shouldn’t be there. Laughable suggestion. Plenty of worse Barca transfers like Petit (overrated at Arsenal regardless), Arda Turan (I think I’m getting a fever) and yet another overrated Arsenal bum Hleb.

 

[Evilo]

Neymar to psg

Certainly not.

They still got 50M out of Dembele and he wasn't that bad.
Of course right now he'd be in the best transfers thread given his current play at PSG.

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

Neymar to PSG should be nowhere near this list.

I was initially surprised at no inclusion of Higuain to Juve, but his stats there are better than I remembered.

Morata to Chelsea feels like a large absentee.

Oh boy. The posts on this forum.

I’ll start out by saying that Coutinho was awful and I’m not surprised he’d be argued as #1. That said, all of these depend on how you look at them. For me, Hazard is worse than Coutinho and it’s pretty obvious:

-Hazard’s status prior to joining Madrid doesn’t change the fact that it was a disastrous transfer.
-Per Transfermarkt, Coutinho didn’t cost 150 million, he cost 135 million.
-Coutinho did notably more for Barca than Hazard ever did for Madrid, and that’s despite going out on loan twice.
-Barca recouped some of that fee with the loan to Bayern (and possibly with the loan to Villa, but Transfermarkt isn’t assigning a fee to the latter loan). Then they also recouped some of that selling the player to Villa.

So in the end they cost about the same (unless there was some big discrepancy in their wages) and Coutinho did notably better with Barca than Hazard did with Madrid.

I love when you float in and out of this board with the same glorious condescending air. "The posts on this forum" I miss you when you take your hiatuses.

I think it (fairly unambiguously) matters when assessing a transfer whether or not it was terrible because of circumstances following, or because the fee was just truly insane for the player. Hazard was one of the worst transfers of all time (top 5 for sure), but Madrid did not buy a mediocre player for 100m. They bought a world class player for 100m, who then had serious injury problems. Barcelona bought a sometimes good player for 135m (Wikipedia has 142m pounds, which would be approx. 150m Euros, which is where I got 150m from), who then was the mercurial player he always had been.

Whether or not you were a stupid buyer carries weight. Madrid paid market price, it went badly. Barca paid double market price.

 

[S E P H]

You have to adjust for inflation though, the prices about 25 ago are about double in today's money.

Didn't watch a single match from Tevez in China, but that transfer fee and salary of 615 000 a week were absolutely ridiculous for him.

Agreed on Tevez. However, going back to 2006, Chelsea spent 31 million pounds on Shevchenko who was a bust transfer. Using an inflation calculator, 31 million in 2006 is around 50 million pounds as of December 2024. What I am talking about is the amount of 80-90+ million Euro transfers we've seen in the past ten years. We cannot deny that teams have been spending a crazy amount of money within the last ten years and overspent, which is why we see all these rubbish transfers in recent years. More than from the 1980s to 2015 combined IMHO.

Please refrain from using terms like “Bro”. As for the rest of it, irrelevant.

Not really brethren, you lot made LFC into a CL powerhouse club with that Coutinho money. We have seen in the past decade that Liverpool does not spend a lot of money, but with that Coutinho fee, they were able to buy their entire starting XI team lol.

 

[les Habs]

Neymar to PSG should be nowhere near this list.

I was initially surprised at no inclusion of Higuain to Juve, but his stats there are better than I remembered.

Morata to Chelsea feels like a large absentee.

I love when you float in and out of this board with the same glorious condescending air. "The posts on this forum" I miss you when you take your hiatuses.

I think it (fairly unambiguously) matters when assessing a transfer whether or not it was terrible because of circumstances following, or because the fee was just truly insane for the player. Hazard was one of the worst transfers of all time (top 5 for sure), but Madrid did not buy a mediocre player for 100m. They bought a world class player for 100m, who then had serious injury problems. Barcelona bought a sometimes good player for 135m (Wikipedia has 142m pounds, which would be approx. 150m Euros, which is where I got 150m from), who then was the mercurial player he always had been.

Whether or not you were a stupid buyer carries weight. Madrid paid market price, it went badly. Barca paid double market price.

LOL, look who’s talking.

In addition to injuries, Hazard was lazy and didn’t do anything of note when he was healthy.

I was referring to the first post when it came to valuations.

Sure it carries weight. Exactly how much is the question, assuming someone would actually ask it. At the end of the day it doesn’t change the fact it was a disastrous transfer and a worse transfer than Coutinho.

 

[Evilo]

@Wee Baby Seamus
I agree.
Sometimes transfers don't work out for various reasons, but it doesn't make them stupid the day it happened.

However this thread is about worst transfers is not "most stupid transfers".
Hazard wasn't a stupid transfer when it happened. Turned out to be an awful transfer with how it turned out.
So I guess I agree with both of you but we need to define the terms.

 

[les Habs]

Not really brethren, you lot made LFC into a CL powerhouse club with that Coutinho money. We have seen in the past decade that Liverpool does not spend a lot of money, but with that Coutinho fee, they were able to buy their entire starting XI team lol.

No, really. What your’e saying is completely irrelevant to the discussion.

 

[S E P H]

They bought a world class player for 100m, who then had serious injury problems.

Like with Dembele to Barca, Hazard's deal is a legit awful move considering what he did and how he couldn't justify that amount due to his laziness and injuries.

No, really. What your’e saying is completely irrelevant to the discussion.

It's relevant for me considering other EPL clubs (like Arsenal) have to deal with your mistake.

However this thread about worst transfers is not "most stupid transfers".

I suggest both are intertwined. Coutinho was a horrible transfer, but also stupid in every way by CF Barca's staff.

 

[les Habs]

It's relevant for me considering other EPL clubs (like Arsenal) have to deal with your mistake.

Which, I would you assume you’d know since you started the thread, is not what this discussion is about. If you want to have that discussion then I suggest you start with Arsenal’s mistakes and worry less about Liverpool.

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

@Wee Baby Seamus
I agree.
Sometimes transfers don't work out for various reasons, but it doesn't make them stupid the day it happened.

However this thread is about worst transfers is not "most stupid transfers".
Hazard wasn't a stupid transfer when it happened. Turned out to be an awful transfer with how it turned out.
So I guess I agree with both of you but we need to define the terms.

Yea, like for me Hazard is a Top 5 worst. There's no argument for him not being one of the absolute worst! But to be the worst worst IMO it has to be disastrous in both outcome and origin.

 

[S E P H]

Which, I would you assume you’d know since you started the thread, is not what this discussion is about. If you want to have that discussion then I suggest you start with Arsenal’s mistakes and worry less about Liverpool.

I did not make this thread to just pile on the Coutinho transfer, but our discussion keeps coming back to it because you're trying to lessen the worst move of all time. There are a ton of mistakes in those articles, Pepe to Arsenal is absolutely one of those and deserves a top 10-15 place as well. However, that Pepe money didn't transform Lille into a powerhouse as Coutinho to Barca did for KFC.