5 times clubs missed out on Deadline Day signings

#2 Adrien Silva to Leicester City, 2017

Adrien Silva ended up in limbo when FIFA pulled the plug on his move to Leicester

One of the first signings to go through in 2018’s January transfer window was the move of Portuguese midfielder Adrien Silva to Leicester City. The player signed from Sporting Lisbon for £22m, and he even made his debut for the Foxes on New Year’s Day. Why did it all happen so quickly? Well, because of an odd situation that caused the move to fall through on the previous transfer window’s deadline day.

Interest in Silva from Leicester came during the summer when their star midfielder Danny Drinkwater was linked with a move to Chelsea. But with Chelsea haranguing over a fee for Drinkwater, the 2015/16 Premier League champions didn’t want to risk spending a large fee on Silva if they couldn’t sell the England midfielder beforehand. But when Drinkwater’s move was finalised, at last, it looked like Leicester would finally close the deal on Silva, too.

Despite Sporting haggling over a price, eventually £22m was agreed and the paperwork was sent off to the FA to register the player, only for FIFA to torpedo the move when they claimed the papers had arrived late – by all of 14 seconds. Both Silva and Leicester claimed they were disgusted by the whole mess, but despite protests, FIFA refused to sanction the deal and Silva ended up in limbo for four months before being allowed to complete his move to the King Power Stadium. It was perhaps the strangest deadline day plug-pulling of them all.