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In today's world, there is no way faster to reach a massive audience than have a big social media account with a lot of followers and engagement. Over the past few years, football clubs have ensured that they are active on most social media platforms and have a very good marketing team behind those platforms, to earn engagement and attract more fans.
Over the same time, the trend which has taken over the world of social media is extravagant player transfer announcements. Clubs focus a lot on how they announce their latest signing, as the announcement accompanying the transfer has become almost as important as the transfer itself. While some clubs have succeeded in making brilliant and hilarious transfer videos which stand out, others have failed when they have attempted to dabble in this field.
In this list, we take a look at the five worst transfer announcements of the last decade. These are some of the biggest hit-and-miss attempts at being funny or being creative, and they are remembered for all the wrong reasons.
5. Jesus Navas is kidnapped - Sevilla, 2017
A club legend is returning to his old team after years away. How do you announce his signing? Not how Sevilla announced Jesus Navas's return to Spain a couple of years ago.
In 2017, transfer announcement videos were at their peak, and every club was trying to outdo the other with their social media game. La Liga side Sevilla, however, might have gone a bit overboard as they shot this video which was terrible in all aspects.
Not only is Navas kidnapped and put into the back of a car trunk, but he also has a plastic bag shoved over his head and is taken to Sanchez Pizjuan, where he delivers an acting performance worthy of a Golden Raspberry Awards. It is an announcement best forgotten, as Sevilla's attempt at comedy backfired.
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4. Aston Villa 'get a text', 2018
Love Island is a famous reality show in the United Kingdom which gathers a large TV audience. The show consists of a group of men and women participate in a series of tasks with a partner that they keep swapping until they meet the love of their life.
In 2018, Aston Villa tried to cash in on the popularity of the reality TV show as they made a transfer video on the same lines. Announcing the signing of Andre Moreira on a season-long spell from Atletico Madrid, the Premier League club showed a bunch of people hanging out near a swimming pool and someone received a text. The video played on the segment of the show when a contestant receives a text.
The contents of this particular text were apparently so delightful to the people in the video could not contain their excitement - it was just the club saying that Moreira had been announced. The 20-second clip was a disaster which "embarrassed" some Villa fans. The use of hashtags such as #SozForKeepingYallHanging did not help their cause.
3. A talking football - Barcelona, 2018
As good as Barcelona are on the pitch, their social media game requires a lot of improvements. The club's official Twitter account is one of the most followed accounts in the world, but the content which it puts out is not nearly as good as the likes of some other teams.
When the Catalan club wanted to announce the signing of Arthur Melo in 2018, they decided to create a new character - a talking football which resides at the Camp Nou. Instead of praising Arthur or showing his skills and tricks to a fanbase which might not know how good he is, the football kept on talking about the history of FC Barcelona while praising some of its current players.
Overall, it was a really weird watch which came off looking horrible in comparison to some of the great, creative videos which were released by other clubs beforehand.
Also read - 5 best transfer announcements of the decade
2. Alexis Sanchez's piano performance - Manchester United, 2018
This particular transfer announcement ranks as one of the worst due to hindsight, and nothing else. When Manchester United acquired the services of Alexis Sanchez in 2018, the Premier League was scared. As it should have been - the Chilean was arguably Arsenal's best player for a good three seasons, and there was no reason to suggest he would not succeed with the Red Devils.
However, watching it now, Sanchez's announcement video which consists of him playing "Glory Glory Man United" masterfully on the piano, and standing proudly in the middle of Old Trafford seems nothing short of hilarious. No one could have predicted the bad form of the former Gunner at Old Trafford, but there is something funny about the fact that the player's best performance in a Manchester United shirt came in the form of playing the piano during his Twitter announcement.
Although that tweet has gotten over 300,000 engagements on the social media app, no Manchester United fan is ever going to want to watch the clip again.
1. Antonio Rudiger has a Chelsea shirt on - 2017
For a club with Chelsea's resources, you would think that they would have hired a better marketing and video editing team to announce their players in a much better fashion. Antonio Rudiger's transfer announcement in 2017 is arguably the worst instance of a transfer reveal through Twitter, as every single aspect of this short clip leaves much to be desired.
The video starts with a young Chelsea fan asking his dad for a Rudiger jersey - with no disrespect to the player, no kid that age will be wanting a jersey of a newly signed defender when the likes of Eden Hazard are still at the club (something the kid's dad points out in the video itself, which defeats half the purpose of the announcement). Secondly, the acting throughout the entire 45-second clip is so horrendous that one has to think whether the people involved were actual actors or just normal citizens cast into the role at the last second.
Overall, the entire video screams low-production and low-thought process, and ranks as the worst transfer announcement video of the decade.
