The most expensive transfer mistakes of all time

Big transfers are exciting, nobody can argue otherwise. Sure, there’s something satisfying about a club unearthing a hidden gem in the fourth tier of Brazilian football, or seeing an academy player break into the team, but there’s nothing that gets the imagination going quite like a club breaking the bank for a star name.

Big players come with big reputations, and big transfer fees. The logic is that big transfer fees are the price necessary for picking up a top quality player, who is far more likely to lift a team’s level and define their style of play.

Signing star players is a sure-fire way of guaranteeing success, or at least that’s the theory. However, football history is full of examples of players who have moved for big money and failed to set the world alight. We’ve taken a look at some of the most expensive examples below.

Philippe Coutinho
Barcelona signed the Brazilian midfielder from Liverpool in January 2018. An initial fee of £105 million, the transfer could have potentially risen to £142 million, depending on add-ons.

The third most expensive deal in history, after the transfers of Neymar and Kylian Mbappé to Paris Saint-Germain, the transfer saw Liverpool make a massive profit on the player, who they signed for £8.5 million five years earlier.

Although Coutinho is a quality player, it was never entirely clear how he would fit in to the Barcelona setup. As such, he arrived with a great deal of expectation, but no real role in the side.

He was touted by some as the successor to Andrés Iniesta, but Coutinho was never likely to replicate Iniesta’s vision or creativity in the final third, and he never really carved out a position for himself in the side.

Antoine Griezmann
Already a star at Atlético Madrid, Griezmann made the move to Barcelona amidst a raft of publicity. It was a controversial move, as Barcelona activated his buy-out clause, for €120 million, but Atlético insisted that they were owed €200 million, which had been the value of the clause before July 2019, as the parties had planned the deal beforehand.

Eventually, the transfer went through, and Griezmann turned out for Barcelona. However, things didn’t go according to plan during his time at the Camp Nou.

Much like Coutinho, there was no denying his ability, but it was hard to see exactly how he fit into the side in a manner that complemented the club’s other elite attackers.

Griezmann scored 15 goals in 48 games in his first season, and followed that up with 20 in 51 during the 2020-21 season, the worst goal returns he’d managed in a year since the 2012-13 season, where he scored 11 in 35 for Real Sociedad.

Romelu Lukaku
After his time at Inter Milan, Romelu Lukaku’s £97.5 million return to Stamford Bridge looked a sure thing, but that wasn’t how things turned out.

Lukaku started the season well enough, but he struggled to maintain his good form. There were plenty of football bets placed on him ending the season as top scorer after his dominant start to the season, but a combination of injury problems and poor form saw him fade away.

He never looked entirely comfortable with Thomas Tuchel’s chopping and changing of system, and the situation deteriorated when a Sky Sports Italia interview quoted Lukaku as complaining about his role under Tuchel, while pining for a return to Inter.

Although amends were made, it seemed inevitable that Lukaku would not be staying at Chelsea for the long term.

Eden Hazard
Hazard joined Real Madrid from Chelsea in the summer of 2019 for £89 million, as part of a deal that could potentially rise to £130 million.

50,000 fans attended his unveiling, and Hazard got the number seven shirt for Real, seemingly confirming the theory that he had been signed as a replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo, who left the previous summer.

However, Hazard has had fitness and injury problems since his first summer in Madrid, and has struggled to break into the side.

Having now been at Real Madrid for three years, he hasn’t featured in more than 20 league games in any single season, and his highest goal tally across all competitions is four goals, in the 2020-21 season.

With Karim Benzema undroppable, and Vinicius Júnior continuing to develop impressively, Hazard has found himself a peripheral figure in the Real Madrid attack.

Given his high wages, Real Madrid haven’t had any choice but to keep him around the squad, using him as a rotation player when the opportunity arises, but this is not how anyone hoped his move would turn out.