Month: October 2018

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.