#1 Antonio Rudiger to Chelsea, 2017
And the Kohinoor diamond of all the failed unveilings is arguably the most recent unveiling on the list, that of German defender Antonio Rudiger to Chelsea just days ago. The centre-back might not have been the summer’s highest profile signing, but apparently, Antonio Conte sees him as a key figure in Chelsea’s title defence. Unfortunately, his unveiling didn’t match his high reputation.
Rather than announce the signing via Twitter or the club’s official page, a cheesy mini-movie was instead used, featuring a man and his son visiting the Chelsea club shop. The father – seemingly playing a character somewhere between Will from the Inbetweeners and David Brent – asks his son which name he’d like on his shirt. The son replies “Rudiger” to which the father explains he hasn’t actually signed yet and suggests David Luiz or Eden Hazard instead.
Of course, the camera then pans away to show Rudiger in the back of the shop, posing in his new Chelsea shirt, revealing that he’s indeed signed for the Blues and of course the child can have his name on his shirt.
Good idea? Perhaps, but it was downright terrible in execution due to the contrived set-up and shoddy acting job on behalf of the guy playing the father and the girl at the shop – well let’s not talk about the German’s ability in front of the camera as well.
Why Chelsea couldn’t have just done a traditional unveiling is something we will never know. Maybe they wanted Rudiger to seem more high-profile? Who knows! They seem to have learned their lesson though as their latest signing Tiemoue Bakayoko was simply posed in the club shirt with a Chelsea ball.
#2 Gokhan Inler to Napoli, 2011
And so we go from cheesy to just plain bizarre. Napoli had been linked with Udinese’s Swiss midfielder Gokhan Inler throughout the 2010/11, but it didn’t look like the deal would go through, with clubs such as Arsenal also supposedly in the race to sign him. Those doubting Napoli evidently didn’t take into account the sheer eccentricity of chairman Aurelio de Laurentiis – a film producer from a family full of them.
A presentation on a cruise ship – in itself pretty bizarre - was organised in July 2011, supposedly to launch Napoli’s new kit for the 2011/12 season, and more than a few eyebrows were raised when de Laurentiis called out a man in a lion mask to model the new shirt. Napoli’s mascot is of course a donkey, so the choice of mask was strange to begin with.
Suddenly though things went from strange to downright bizarre. The masked man stood next to the chairman before turning to reveal the number 88 – the squad number Inler had worn at Udinese – before pulling off the mask to reveal himself as the Swiss midfielder.
The stunt was like something straight out of WWE rather than football, but seemed to fit Napoli’s eccentric image at the time. Inler ended up staying at the club for four seasons before a move to Leicester City – one that was announced in a much more conventional fashion!
