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The January transfer window is currently open, and for fans of the Premier League’s biggest clubs, it’s an exciting time as they await the potential new arrivals at their club. However, not all transfers have a happy ending.
Over the years we’ve seen plenty of big transfers fall apart at the very last minute, often for no rhyme or reason, and an explanation can take years to come out.
Almost all of the Premier League’s biggest clubs have fallen victim to these kinds of issues, so without further ado, here’s a look at five big transfers that fell apart under mysterious circumstances.
#1 Nabil Fekir to Liverpool (2018)
In the summer of 2018, Liverpool were coming off their heartbreaking loss to Real Madrid in that year’s Champions League final. With Jurgen Klopp wanting to add some creativity to his squad to make up for the loss of Philippe Coutinho, a solution was identified in the form of Lyon’s Nabil Fekir.
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The Frenchman had made 30 appearances for Lyon in the 2017-18 campaign, scoring an impressive 18 goals and registering 8 assists.
Liverpool made their move, and after a few weeks of protracted negotiations, a £59m fee was apparently agreed. The deal looked so “done” that shots of Fekir proudly sporting a Liverpool shirt were even taken.
And then at the last minute, the transfer fell through entirely, leaving Fekir to spend one more season at Lyon before moving instead to Real Betis.
So what happened? The truth still isn’t fully known. According to rumors at the time, Fekir’s medical flagged up a potential issue with his knee, and Liverpool decided not to take the risk.
A later interview with Fekir saw the Frenchman deny this, stating that he’d flown through his medical without his knee being mentioned.
However, Fekir’s former agent has refuted those claims, stating that his knee was indeed the problem – as was the “appearance of a foreign pseudo-representative” who apparently forced their way into negotiations.
At any rate, Liverpool did fine without the Frenchman, winning the 2018-19 Champions League and the 2019-20 Premier League title.
#2 Joao Moutinho to Tottenham Hotspur (2012)
Portuguese playmaker Joao Moutinho is currently starring in the Premier League for Wolves, but had things gone slightly differently, he could well have arrived in England’s top-flight almost a decade earlier.
That’s because a move to Tottenham Hotspur, mooted for transfer deadline day in August 2012, fell through at the last minute under mysterious circumstances.
Moutinho was at the time starring for Porto, and Tottenham were looking for a new creative fulcrum for their side following the sale of Luka Modric to Real Madrid.
A move for Moutinho appeared to make sense, particularly as he’d previously played under new Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas during their time together at Porto.
And so a £24m fee was agreed, with the Portuguese international heading to London to finalize the transfer. However, with the clock ticking down towards the 11 pm deadline, the transfer somehow fell through, apparently due to the correct paperwork not being submitted to the Premier League in time.
It felt strange, particularly as Tottenham had become known for doing last-minute transfers in the years that led up to 2012, but things made more sense – if only slightly – when more information came to light.
Reportedly, the stumbling block was the fact that a third-party investor-owned around 15% of Moutinho’s economic rights – and under the Premier League’s rules, any kind of third-party ownership was, and still is outlawed.
Essentially then, there simply wasn’t the time to solve this problem, and so Moutinho remained a Porto player until making a move to Monaco in 2013.
#3 Demba Ba to Stoke City (2011)
When Senegalese forward Demba Ba scored an impressive six goals in just 17 appearances for 1899 Hoffenheim in the first half of the 2010-11 season, he immediately piqued the interest of Premier League sides looking for more goals.
Supposedly, West Ham were interested, and looking to force the move through, Ba refused to travel to a winter training camp with Hoffenheim.
Hoffenheim’s immediate response was to threaten to fire the striker, warn him about potential legal action, and attempt to ban him from moving for six months. When those options proved to be impossible though, the German side reneged.
Ba was allowed to talk to several clubs, and it seemed like Stoke City were his preferred destination. A £7.1m fee was agreed, and Ba accepted personal terms too. However, at the last minute, the Potters withdrew from the deal.
Reportedly, Ba’s medical had shown a potential issue with the striker’s knee, and to the dismay of Stoke boss Tony Pulis, his club refused to let the transfer go ahead.
Instead, with his position at Hoffenheim untenable, the Senegalese ended up heading to the club that had shown an interest in the first place – West Ham.
The move went through this time, and Ba ended up starring in the Premier League for the Hammers, and eventually Newcastle and finally Chelsea. And incredibly, the supposed knee issue never reared its head again.
#4 David de Gea to Real Madrid (2015)
By 2015, Real Madrid were no strangers to poaching the Premier League’s best talent, as the Spanish giants had taken David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric in the years leading up to that point.
And so when they set their eyes on Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea, it seemed likely that the Spaniard would be heading back to the country of his birth before the transfer window closed in the summer of that year.
After a long-winded series of negotiations lasted the entire summer, it appeared that Los Blancos finally had their man. A reported £29m fee was agreed, with Real keeper Keylor Navas heading the other way to Old Trafford.
However, at the very last moment, the deal collapsed entirely. And incredibly, just eleven days after the window closed, De Gea inked a new four-year deal with the Red Devils. So what went wrong?
Well, apparently, the brinksmanship on behalf of both sides meant that they simply left it too late. Reportedly, the needed paperwork didn’t go through to La Liga’s HQ, despite United claiming they had time stamps on it when it was sent.
Incredibly, Real later confirmed that they had received the paperwork – but it had come through too late, and the blame lay with a faulty fax machine!
Whether this is the full truth remains unknown, but at any rate, De Gea never made his move back to Spain, and remains United’s #1 to this day.
#5 Robert Lewandowski to Blackburn Rovers (2010)
After scoring a scarcely-believable 34 goals in 31 appearances for Bayern Munich last season – and then following that with 23 in 16 games during the current campaign – there’s an argument that Robert Lewandowski is the best striker on the planet right now.
However, had a mooted deal over a decade ago not fallen through, the Polish hitman could well have been plundering goals in the Premier League rather than the Bundesliga.
So what was this deal? Incredibly, it would’ve seen Lewandowski move to Blackburn Rovers, a side who are now languishing in the EFL Championship.
At the time, Blackburn were Premier League stalwarts, and under the reign of Sam Allardyce, they’d finished in 10th place in the 2009-10 campaign.
However, goals were a serious issue for Allardyce’s side, with midfielder David Dunn scoring just nine to finish as their top scorer.
The club clearly needed a new striker, and so Lewandowski – who was coming off an 18-goal season at Lech Poznan – was identified. Allardyce went to watch the striker in action and was sold on his abilities, and so the clubs drew up a plan and came to an agreed fee of £3m.
But disaster then struck. The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull erupted, leaving ash clouds hanging over Europe and causing chaos to international travel. Flights in and out of the UK were suspended, and so Lewandowski was unable to head to Ewood Park to seal his transfer.
Instead, the Polish striker headed to Germany with Borussia Dortmund – for the same £3m fee agreed with Blackburn – and the rest is history.
