Barcelona, Man United Stars Top List of Football’s Most Expensive Transfer Flops

Money makes the football world go around, but spending big doesn't always guarantee success.

In the modern era, football clubs are more willing than ever before to splash the cash in a desperate pursuit of silverware.

Sadly, time and time again, quality players and marquee signings have proven incapable of living up to their lofty transfer fees.

Trolley loads of cash have been spent on these players by clubs, with Man Utd and Barcelona the main contributors.

Sports Brief takes a look at expensive transfer signings that failed to live up to the billing.

Neymar – £200m/€222m (Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain, August 2017)

A fee so ridiculous La Liga refused to receive the payment. PSG laughed Financial Fair Play in the face and handed the money straight to Barcelona, activating one of those stratospheric release clauses designed to typically make such transfers essentially impossible.

This sudden turn of events saw Neymar football’s most expensive signing as per reports from Goal.

The Brazilian however has failed to dish out a performance worthy of his price tag, as he is always hit with season-ending injuries in the crucial part of the football season.

Eden Hazard – £143m/€160m (Chelsea to Real Madrid, July 2019)

The initial payment of £88.5m alone would have been a disastrous transfer, but Hazard has accidentally activated enough variables in between numerous injuries to make this an all-time great waste of money.

So disastrous was Hazard’s disastrous stint at Real Madrid that the club opted to end his contract a year early, paying off the Belgian in the process. Hazard featured just 76 times for Real Madrid in four seasons at the Spanish capital.

Philippe Coutinho – £142m/€160m (Liverpool to Barcelona, January 2018)

It’s difficult to pinpoint the most wrong aspect of this deal from a buyer’s perspective, but it’s somewhere between the £106m initial fee, the £26.4m in clauses paid out for Coutinho’s first 90 appearances, the £89m premium Barcelona reluctantly agreed to pay if they signed any further Liverpool players in the next two years, the fact Coutinho won the Champions League with Bayern Munich while on loan from the Nou Camp, scoring twice in the 8-2 quarter-final humiliation of the Catalans, or the knockdown price of £17m they sold the Brazilian to Aston Villa for after four underwhelming years.

Ousmane Dembele – £135m/€147m (Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona, August 2017)

With a bruised ego and the Neymar cash burning a hole in their back pocket, Barcelona had tried all summer to sign Coutinho but after facing resistance from Liverpool, they went cap in hand to Dortmund for their back-up instead. Surely Lessons were learned with a £369.6m release clause inserted this time – not that the Frenchman has ever come close to warranting such lavish interest.

Dembele’s time at Camp Nou has been plagued with injuries and loads of unhealthy sportsman habits. According to Transfermarkt.com, the French man has scored just 40 goals since his transfer in 2017.

Antoine Griezmann – £107m/€120m (Atletico Madrid to Barcelona, July 2019)

The Frenchman could no longer avoid the Barcelona pull in the summer of 2019 and eventually made the switch to the Camp Nou – a move he would eventually admit was a career mistake according to L'equipe.

Griezmann has somehow managed to remain without a La Liga winner’s medal through it all, timing his moves back and forth between Atletico and Barcelona. The French forward found the back of the net only 24 times in 102 appearances for the Blaugrana.

Joao Felix – £113m/€126m (Benfica to Atletico Madrid, July 2019)

Perhaps the worst match of player and manager there has ever been for a club-record transfer.

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How strange that the skilful individualist forward who doesn’t track back never meshed with a totalitarian coach who demands suffering and sacrifice from his subordinates.

How strange that Atletico committed such sums on a teenager with 45 career first-team appearances. How strange that they can’t find someone to buy him. It’s a conundrum for Atleti and Joao Felix currently.

The Portuguese is reportedly linked with a move to PSG which is a move the 23-year-old will pray surely materialises.

Jadon Sancho – £73m/€85m (Borussia Dortmund to Man Utd, July 2021)

In his three full seasons with Borussia Dortmund, Sancho’s least productive campaign was his first, when he scored 13 goals and provided 20 assists in 43 games.

Across his two whole seasons with Man Utd, the forward has scored 12 goals and assisted six in 79 games. According to Talksport, the disappointing forward is on the long list of players set to be shipped out of Carrington, and the club could accept £45m for him two years on. it’s not gone too well for Sancho so far.

Antony – £82m/€95m (Ajax to Man Utd, September 2022)

Erik ten Hag put all his eggs in the Antony basket but a few must have cracked in transit from Amsterdam, with the relatively slow and predominantly one-footed winger scoring eight goals and assisting three in a 44-game debut season.

It remains to be seen if the forward can re-write prints at Old Trafford. Judging by what has been seen over time, not much improvement is expected from the former Ajax man.

Nicolas Pepe – £72m/€80m (Lille to Arsenal, August 2019)

After offering the closest challenge to Kylian Mbappe for the Ligue 1 Golden Boot, Arsenal spent what remains, for now, a club-record fee on a player who has since returned to France after long being outgrown by the upwardly moving Gunners.

Pepe’s spell at Arsenal remains a failure and he has been deemed surplus to requirement in Mikel Arteta’s new project.

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