CONTROVERSIAL SOCCER TRANSFERS

Ashley Cole, is an English soccer player who is considered as one of the best defenders of his generations. His career also had a phase of controversial transfer saga. He is a left back and is currently playing LA Galaxy in the US.

Cole started his career with Arsenal in 1999 at age 18, which was very uncommon at the time- a player starting off his career at a big club. At Arsenal, he made his debut with the first team meaning that he was always considered a player with immense potential. But, Cole was soon loaned out to Crystal Palace in the 1999-2000 season. At Crystal palace, he played a crucial role in helping the club defend against other clubs. However, he was soon called back to Arsenal when one of their left-backs got injured. Cole took this opportunity to prove himself and was included in the first team even after the former starting defender recovered.

He played a crucial part in helping the club win the FA Premier League twice, in 2002 and 2004 and also the FA Cup thrice, in 2002,2003 and 2005. Cole also scored occasionally to help the Gunners win. Cole had a very good 2004-2005 season but got injured for most part of the next season.

Cole’s saga of controversial transfer saga began in 2005 when he was found guilty of contacting Chelsea illegally without informing Arsenal. He was fined £100,000 for illegally contacting another club. Cole then proceeded to sign a one year extension at Arsenal before he verbally attacked the club for fining him causing a series of problems for him at the club. He was benched for most games and was deliberately left out of the club team photograph.

In the winter transfer of 2006, Ashley was transferred to rival club Chelsea which caused Arsenal fans to develop hatred for him. Arsenal fans started chanting words “Chashley” to show their displeasure about his forced transfer to Chelsea and also waved fake £20 notes with his face on it to display their anger when Chelsea played Arsenal.

Cole had a great career while at Chelsea. The club won four more FA Cups while Cole played at the club and played a crucial role at club. He also won the premier league while at the club and a Europa League. Cole had problems with the then club manager Jose Mourinho who named Cole captain for his last game at the club before surprisingly releasing him.

From Chelsea, Cole went to AS Roma for two years where he had a very average career. But, in 2016 he signed for LA Galaxy, where he played a crucial role in helping the team reach the playoffs which the eventually lost. 2017 was an uneventful year for him with his team coming in last. In 2018, Cole was named the team captain. He had a decent year at the club but they again failed to reach the playoffs. After two very uneventful years at LA Galaxy, Cole was released by the club.

Cole has a glorified career in the UK but one full of controversies. Despite all this, he is regarded as a great midfielder.

Roberto Baggio, the former Italian sensation had a brilliant career but one full of controversies. Baggio began his career at age 13 at Vicenza Youth, from where he was promoted to the main team at age 16 because of his skills. He played brilliantly at Vicenza scoring several goals for the club and also managed to win the award for the best Player in Serie C, this is when he started attracting attention of bigger Italian club.

In 1985, he suffered through a terrible injury, but Fiorentina still decided to sign him and pay for the required surgeries. During his time at the club, he became very popular and is also regarded as the club’s best ever player. He led the club to several victories playing valiantly when the club most needed him. He quickly gained reputation in Serie A for being a great attacking midfielder. He saved the club from relegation several times and also helped the club reach new heights. He gained the hero status at Fiorentina during his time at the club. During his last season at the club, he took the club to the UEFA Cup Finals only to be beaten by his future club. He was awarded the Bravo Award this year for his accomplishments individually and for club and also ranked eighth in the Balon d’Or rankings.

In 1990, Fiorentina was sold to their rivals Juventus for a record breaking £8 million. This transfer caused a lot of chaos in Italy since, Fiorentina fans weren’t ready for Baggio to leave yet and Juventus fans weren’t ready to accept him. Things became worse for him when he refused to take a penalty against his former club which caused Juventus to lose the game. But, this all changed with upcoming seasons when he played crucial roles in several games to help Juventus win games. He had a few great seasons at Juventus before he was named the captain. The season he was named captain, he helped the club win the UEFA Cup and won several personal awards like Onze D’or, European Footballer of the Year and FIFA Player of the Year. He played for a few more years at the club before he transferred to a different Italian club.

In 1995, Baggio was in a position where he was technically forced out of Juventus because of his sour relationship with the new club management. Although the fans were against this, he transferred to AC Milan. Baggio initially struggled with injuries but soon got back in form. He helped Milan to a Serie A title and his contribution to Milan made him a fan favorite and he won the Best Player Award at Milan. But, soon, the former manager of Juventus joined Milan and yet again established that Baggio wasn’t a part of his plan for Milan forcing him out again. So, he transferred to Bologna, a team on the verge of relegation.

At Bologna, Baggio regained his lost form and helped the club from not being relegated. He helped Bologna get back on track and soon became a fan favorite there too. He was again ranked as one of the best players in the world during his time at Bologna. Finally in 1998, Baggio signed for his favorite childhood club- Inter Milan.

His move to Inter Milan, though seemed like a good move proved not to be. At Inter, Baggio lost his form with reoccurring injuries and this resulted in him not getting enough playtime at the club. If this wasn’t enough, his former manger from Juventus who he was not on good terms with was appointed as the manager of Inter Milan who again forced him out by not giving him enough playtime.

Baggio then went on a free transfer to a lower ranked Brescia before he retired in 2004. Roberto Baggio had a long soccer career, a rather glorified one with fans all across Italy, if not the world. But, this career of his wasn’t free of controversies with him signing for rival clubs and conflicts with managers.

Going further back in time to the 1950s, Dan Lewis‘ soccer career was one involving record-breaking transfers and controversial ones. Dan Lewis is a former Scottish soccer player. Dan’s soccer career started at second division Huddersfield Town in 1956. After playing at Huddersfield for four years, developing his skills and gaining a reputation for himself, he was signed by Manchester City for £55,000, a record in the British transfer market.

Manchester City was competing against Manchester United while signing Dan but beat them to the race in 1960. Dan had a successful career at City where he scored several goals but he had bigger dreams. So, after only playing a year at Manchester City, he transferred to the Italian club Torino to pursue his ambition in 1961. His transfer was another record-breaking one with a £110,000 transfer fee(a record fee for a transfer involving a British player). At this time, another Italian club Inter Milan tried to prevent him from signing for Torino by claiming that he had signed a pre-contract with them. But, they soon dropped the claim and Law was a Torino player.

At Torino, Law was a superstar scoring goal after goal but the soccer culture in Italy was something he wasn’t expecting and he wasn’t a fan of it. Due to the defensive style of playing in Italy that weren’t favorable for forwards like Law, he grew weary of playing in Italy and put in a transfer request which was disregarded by the club. The next year wasn’t the best year in Law’s career, he was sent off several times by the coach for trying to do things his way. At this time, the club informed him that he would be transferred away from Torino. However, the club wanted to sell him to Juventus which he was completely against. The club tried to force this transfer by claiming this was a part of his contract that he had signed. So, Law flew back home to the UK to keep the club from forcing him to transfer to Juventus.

In 1962 Law eventually joined a British club for another record breaking £115,000. This transfer came rather shocking as he signed for Manchester United who are Manchester City rivals, a club he played for a few years ago. Law reached his peak at Manchester United where he won several matches and tournaments for the club. He was unstoppable at United, he kept winning for United. Law also won the Balon d’Or award while at United. But, the latter stages of his United career were burdened with injuries.

In the summer of 1973, after playing 11 years at United and becoming a club legend, he was given a free transfer. Law was again signed by Manchester City. At City, Law played another good season of soccer after which he formally retired.

Law is celebrated as a soccer legend world-wide and there is also a statue celebrating him at Old Trafford- Manchester United’s stadium.

John Obi Mikel, a Nigerian midfielder, had one of the most shocking and controversial soccer transfers to have ever happened. Mikel played for Lyn, a Norwegian team from 2004-2006 where he played a very important role in the team. So, impressed by his skills, clubs were willing to get him to the Premier League.

In April 2005, a few days after Mikel turned 18, Manchester United announced that that they had signed Mikel for $4 million.They claimed that he had signed a four year contract to join the team. During this signing, Mikel’s agents were bypassed. Chelsea, United’s rival, later claimed that they had made an agreement with Mikel’s agents about signing him as he had apparently impressed Chelsea while training with their first team.

As this controversy blew up, Mikel held a small conference, where he spoke about his admiration for Manchester United and, he held a Man United jersey number 21 in his hands. During this episode of controversies, it is claimed that Mikel received life threatening phone calls from unknown sources. For this very resaon, John Obi Mikel was assigned a security guard. However, on May 11, 2005, Mikel went missing during a Norwegian Cup match against Klemetsrud. Mikel had apparently gone missing with one of his agents, but the director of Lyn reported Mikel’s disappearance as a “kidnapping”. Manchester United started blaming Chelsea for the kidnapping of Mikel.

The disappeared Mikel was reportedly staying at a hotel in London, where he stayed for nine days along with his agent John Shittu. Mikel later stated on Sky Sports that he had beenpressured to sign for Manchester United, these claims were rebuffed by Manchester United and Lyn. He also stated that Chelsea was the team he always wanted to play for. In response to this controversy, Manchester United lodged a complaint to FIFA about the behavior of Chelsea and Mikel’s agents. But, FIFA dismissed the case on the basis of insufficient evidence against Chelsea.

After the end of the Norwegian soccer season, Mikel refused to come back to Lyn, for this the club lodged a complaint against him to FIFA. FIFA ruled that Mikel return to Lyn and play the remainder of the season. Mikel came back after a three month absence to continue playing for Lyn, till his future was decided.

The decision of Lyn’s future rested in the hands of three clubs, Lyn, Manchester United and Chelsea. The clubs came to an agreement that the player would be signed by Chelsea and in return, Chelsea would pay Manchester $12 million and Lyn $4 million.

Finally, in September 2006, Mikel made his debut for Chelsea, where he went on to play for the next nine successful seasons.

Carlos Tevez, the Argentine forward has had a career full of controversial transfers. He started off his career at Boca Juniors, a sports club based in Argentina. He played in decent form at the club Copa Libertadores and the Intercontinental Cup in 2003.

Following his successful seasons at Boca Juniors, he transferred to Corinthians in 2005 for twenty two million dollars, making it the biggest transfer ever in South America. He captained the team was named the best player in the league. The series of controversies started in 2006 when Tevez refused to play for Corinthians and forced his transfer to West Ham United along with Javier Mascherano, this transfer was put in place by third party MSI and Global Soccer Agencies, which owned the players’ rights. At the time, West Ham United were on the verge of relegation and their transfer to the club, revealed this whole set of controversies.

The involvement of third parties in the transfer caused West Ham a fine of $5.5 million that they had to pay for breaching Premier League rules. But, Tevez was allowed to play for West Ham. His career at West Ham was very average, where he won a few games and lost quite a few. In 2007, Tevez made his start for West Ham, in his first game, Tevez scored a goal and assisted two others and helped West Ham win 3-0. In the last game of the season, when West Ham were on the verge of relegation, Tevez scored the only goal in the match, to help West Ham secure a place in the top flight of Premier League.

The same year, he was loaned to Manchester United where he played under Sir Alex Ferguson. His game improved a lot at Manchester United and he played most games and started on several occasions. He had a successful run at Manchester United where he scored a lot of goals and assisted on several occasions. But, in 2008, he started showing signs of being unsatisfied at Manchester United. But, all these reports were completely trashed by Sir Alex Ferguson. In 2009, when his loan tenure was about over, Manchester United put in an offer to buy him from West Ham, Tevez had other plans.

The second most controversial transfer of his soccer career was in 2009, where he joined the Manchester United rivals, Manchester City for a then record transfer of $47 million. He had a glorified career at Manchester City, where he helped the team win several games scoring on numerous occasions. Tevez won several awards while at City and became a household name. He was also named captain of the team in 2010 after only one season at City.

After a controversial incident during one of the matches, he was expected to leave City, but after failing to secure a transfer, he was fined at the club and wasn’t allowed to play in the first team for a few matches. Later, he was again a part of the first team and had a few more amazing seasons, before finally transferring to Juventus.

Tevez continued to show his form at Juventus. He was named the Serie A player of the year in the 2014-15 season. But, in 2016 he decided to transfer away from Juventus and venture into the Chinese League and transferred to Shanghai Shenhua, where he became the highest payed soccer player in the world. After playing in China. Finally, he decided to go back to where it all started, his boyhood club, back in Argentina- Boca Juniors, where he still continues to play.

Though, his career was filled with a series of controversies, he is regarded as one of Argentina’s finest forwards.

William Gallas, the French defender who played soccer from the late 1990s to the early 2000s was part of a really unsportsmanlike soccer transfer. William Gallas played most of his soccer in France and England. He played for Caen, Marseille, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and Perth Glory.

Gallas, started his career at second divison team Caen. He played a crucial role in helping promote Caen to the first division. He was then transferred to Marseille where he played 4 seasons of soccer. After this, Ranieri, then manager of Chelsea bought Gallas for $6.2 million. Chelsea was where Gallas developed as a defender, he formed partnership with John Terry and Marcel Desailly and helped Chelsea keep a clean sheet for 16 straight games. Ranieri’s successor, Jose Murinho’s Chelsea won two back to back premier league titles, and a league title. But, in 2004 because of an injured player, Gallas had to play left back, a position he wasn’t very comfortable playing. His frustration kept on growing even more as he forced to play in that position.

Gallas’ contract was due to expire in May 2007, so Chelsea asked him to renew the contract on better terms. But, in May of 2006 Gallas had decided to make a move away from Chelsea to Serie A but Chelsea wasn’t going to let him go. So, after the international break, Gallas decided not to show up at Stamford Bridge(Chelsea’s Stadium). So, finally he was transferred away from Chelsea to Arsenal. This transfer wasn’t taken very well by Chelsea, where they released a statement claiming that Gallas threatened to score own goals at Chelsea, these rumors were discredited by Gallas.

Gallas, then helped Arsenal reach new heights, where he scored a lot of goals under Arsene Wenger. He helped Arsenal win many of the games he played and was given the responsibility of being the captain of the team in 2007. Under him, Arsenal transformed into a much better team with potentail to win the Champions League. But after 2 seasons at the club, Gallas suffered a series of injuries that hindered his performance. In 2010, he moved from Arsenal to Tottenham after requestinng unreasonable demands to Chelsea.

Playing for the Spurs(Tottenham) he helped them in their Champions League campaign where they reached the quarter finals only to be defeated by Real Madrid. He played a crucial first season for the Spurs playing 36 games. In the subsequent seasons, after sustaining more injuries, he managed to only play 17 games. Finally, in 2013 he was released from Tottenham.

Gallas then went on to play for Perth Glory for a year making 14 appearances before ending his career

Let us step back a bit in time to the late 1990s when scoring 50 goals a season was unheard of. Although, it accounted for one of the biggest and most shocking transfers in the soccer world. Young Luís Figo of Portugal who had just made his name in the soccer world by playing brilliantly for Sporting FC was awaiting his big move to Italy.

The saga of controversies started right at the beginning of his career when he signed contracts with The Old Lady(Juventus) and Parma at the same time. This resulted in him getting a two year Italian transfer ban, but his chances of making it big were far from over. Playing for Sporting FC he had gained attention from all the big clubs in the world. Seeing that the Italian clubs were out of the race, the two biggest competitors for Figo were FC Barcelona(La Liga) and Manchester City(Premier League). But, a few more problems came his way due to transfer rules that kept him from joining Manchester City.

The result of all of these series of events resulted in Figo joining Barcelona. Figo’s career took off to its full potential at Barcelona, where he was surrounded by the likes of the great Rivaldo and Ronaldo. He won the UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup with Barcelona in 1996-97. He had become a household in Barcelona as one of the best players on the team who never disappointed. But unfortunately, a couple of years later, he disappointed Barcelona fans all across the world.

It is a known fact for anyone who watches Spanish soccer or soccer in general that, Barcelona and Real Madrid have the biggest rivalry, possibly in the world. Imagine being a fan of one of these Spanish giants and seeing your talisman transfer to the other team! This is what the Barcelona fans were going through in July of 2000. Real Madrid met the buy out clause of Luís Figo, making it one of the most expensive transfer at the time, where they payed $70 million. This transfer came as a shock to everyone and certainly wasn’t taken very sportingly. It got even worse when he won a Balon D’Or that year for Real Madrid for what he had accomplished in Barcelona.

On October 21, 2000 when Figo came to Barcelona only in a white jersey to play the El Clasico, he experienced what players shouldn’t ever experience in their lifetime. All the 98000 fans in the stadium calling him a traitor, scum, throwing everything from bottles to mobile phones at him as he entered the pitch. This display of bad sportsmanship was displayed throughout the game, which affected Figo’s game, causing Madrid to lose 0-2 to Barcelona. This display was condemned by everyone in the soccer world, but it didn’t matter to the hurt fans of Barcelona who displayed the same behavior a year down the line, again disrupting play. But, over the next few years this hatred that they possessed for Figo calmed down.

In 2005 Figo went on a free transfer to Inter Milan, where he played brilliantly for the next few seasons, before finally retiring in 2008 when he led Inter Milan to their title victory.

Luís Figo is considered as one of the greatest legends in world of soccer by all despite his controversial transfers.