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Transfer Deadline Day – whether it’s in the summer or the winter – is arguably the most exciting and dramatic day on the calendar in football, and as a fan, there’s nothing quite like hearing the rumours of who your club may or may not be about to sign as the clock ticks down to the moment that the window shuts.
Over the years we’ve seen plenty of deadline day drama unfold; the Fernando Torres saga in 2011, for instance, and the amount of surprise last-second moves we’ve seen is hard to quantify at this stage.
But deadline day isn’t all drama and rumours – at times it can be quite bizarre too. There have been some truly odd incidents on deadline days over the years, and while nothing quite beats the comedy value of a Sky Sports reporter having a highly questionable object waved in his direction, the following 5 moments involving star players are amongst the strangest of them all.
#5 Robinho gets confused over which club he’s joined (2008)
The transfer window in the summer of 2008 was always destined to be an eventful one, and one of the biggest moves that was expected to take place was that of Brazilian forward Robinho. The then-24-year-old had been struggling at Real Madrid, and so the word was that he was headed to the Premier League to join Chelsea.
Everything seemed set as deadline day loomed; Robinho himself stated that he was intent on heading to Stamford Bridge, Real were more than happy for the Brazilian to leave and even Peter Kenyon, Chelsea’s CEO seemed confident of sealing the deal.
Incredibly though, things all changed at the last possible moment. Deadline day saw Manchester City bought out by the ultra-rich Abu Dhabi United Group, and out of nowhere, it was suddenly announced that Robinho wasn’t heading to Chelsea, who had even started printing shirts with his name on the back – but was Manchester-bound instead.
Sure enough, a British transfer record fee of £32.5m was quickly confirmed, and shortly after, the player was introduced at City. Incredibly, the surprise move even seemed to have caught Robinho himself cold; during a press conference to introduce him to his new club, the Brazilian blurted out that he was happy to have accepted Chelsea’s proposal – before being corrected by a gobsmacked reporter.
#4 Dodgy fax machine sinks De Gea deal (2015)
Since the advent of e-mail and high-speed internet in the late 1990s, fax machines seem to have been largely condemned to the past. Unfortunately, Real Madrid appeared to have forgotten all about that in the summer of 2015, resulting in what would’ve been a headline-worthy deadline day move for Manchester United keeper David De Gea going down the drain at the last second.
According to reports, the two clubs agreed a fee of £29m for De Gea, with Real keeper Keylor Navas heading to Old Trafford as his replacement. But despite the move seemingly settled – United boss Louis Van Gaal even dropped the Spaniard for the first two matches of the season with the transfer pending – things fell apart after Los Blancos failed to register the necessary paperwork to complete the deal with La Liga.
A dodgy fax machine at Real’s headquarters was apparently to blame for the issues – although the Spanish giants also accused the Red Devils of stalling the deal, as they stated that some documentation regarding the move didn’t arrive from Manchester in time.
In the end, De Gea – who was in Madrid with his girlfriend at the time – ended up staying with United, while Navas – who was all set to board a plane to Manchester for a medical – later admitted that he burst into tears when he found out that his move had fallen through.
#3 Ryan Babel’s helicopter trip to nowhere (2010)
As the summer deadline day loomed in August 2010, one player who appeared to be on the brink of a move was Liverpool’s Dutch winger Ryan Babel. The former Ajax man had spent 3 seasons at Anfield but had largely fallen out of favour going into the 2010-11 season after narrowly missing out on an £8m move to Birmingham City during the previous window.
Tottenham and West Ham were both rumoured to be interested in his signature, and so on the 31st August deadline day, reports began to flood in that the Dutchman had boarded a helicopter in Liverpool, with London being his likely destination.
Hours later though, things took a bizarre twist when Babel posted on his Twitter page that he was “going nowhere” and also stated he was “LFC all the way”. And although a £5m offer from Spurs was reportedly accepted by Liverpool, the Dutchman ended up staying with the Reds, with then-Spurs boss Harry Redknapp going onto suggest the deal was nowhere near done anyway.
So where exactly had Babel’s helicopter journey taken him? A decade on, we still don’t know, and truthfully, there was no real proof that he made the trip in the first place. Regardless, this odd incident added a new word into football’s lexicon – Babelcopter – and remains well-remembered today.
#2 Benjani misses his flight and almost scuppers City move
Portsmouth’s Benjani was a man in form during the early part of the 2007-08 season, scoring 12 goals in 23 appearances for Pompey, and thus it came as no surprise when bigger clubs began to sniff around him as the January transfer window loomed. Once such side was Manchester City, and on deadline day, Portsmouth accepted an £8m bid from the Citizens for the Zimbabwean.
Bizarrely though, it didn’t seem that the striker himself was that interested in the move. Somehow, Benjani missed two flights from Southampton airport to Manchester, and when he managed to make it onto a third flight, he didn’t arrive at City’s training ground until 11:10 pm – leaving insufficient time to ink the deal before the midnight transfer deadline.
Naturally, neither side was too impressed with the incident, which the Zimbabwean blamed on tiredness – supposedly, he fell asleep in the airport – and Portsmouth, in particular, were left sweating as they’d used the funds from the Benjani sale to sign his replacement, Jermain Defoe.
Eventually, though, City were able to get their man, completing the deal a couple of days after deadline day with the Premier League approving their paperwork.
Nearly a decade on, Harry Redknapp – Pompey’s boss at the time of the move – recalled it as his most dramatic deadline day moment, suggesting he practically shoved Benjani onto the third flight, and that the stories of his tiredness were simply made up in an attempt by him to avoid the move altogether.
#1 Odemwingie’s unauthorised trip to Loftus Road (2013)
The January transfer window is usually relatively free of bizarre moments in comparison to its summer counterpart, but that wasn’t the case in 2013, as a controversial incident involving Nigerian striker Peter Odemwingie left football fans across the world absolutely gobsmacked.
Odemwingie had spent 2 seasons at West Bromwich Albion, and after hitting 10 Premier League goals in 2011-12, the striker evidently decided that he was destined for bigger things. And so when the January 2013 transfer window rolled around, he slapped in a transfer request.
The Baggies were having none of it, outright stating that they didn’t want to lose any players during the window, but Odemwingie was still determined to move, and late in the month, it appeared that he’d found a suitor in the form of QPR, who made a £2m bid for the Nigerian.
West Brom turned the bid down, but after going on an outrageous Twitter rant against the Baggies – who he accused of doubting his commitment and stealing his loyalty – Odemwingie decided to attempt to force his way out of the Hawthorns rather than wait any longer.
On deadline day, the Nigerian made a 125-mile trip from West Bromwich to London, arriving at Loftus Road with hours remaining in the window – only to find himself locked out of QPR’s training ground. Unsurprisingly, Rangers didn’t want to risk any contact with the striker due to the fact that their bid had been turned down.
Odemwingie was instead forced to return to West Brom with his tail tucked firmly between his legs – and it came as no surprise when he was largely frozen out of the Baggies’ first team before finally departing for Cardiff in the next transfer window.
