KEY POINTS:
When Kaka's move to Manchester City fell over, neutral fans were robbed of the chance to giggle as it all ended in tears.
English soccer has a proud history of idiotic transfers, Winston Aldworth looks at the oddest of them.
1: Ali Dia
From nowhere to Southampton (fee
undisclosed)
When Southampton manager Graham Souness got a phone call from George Weah, 1995 World Footballer of the Year, that his talented cousin was interested in joining the side his interest was piqued. Souness signed the lad on a one-month trial at Southampton.
In truth, it wasn't Weah on the phone, it was a dodgy agent telling fibs. Legend has it Souness missed the training session at which Ali Dia's lack of talent was obvious to his teammates.
A reserve grade friendly game that would have exposed him to the coaches was called off due to a water-logged pitch, so the first time Souness saw his new young signing kick a ball was when he put him on the field as a substitute in the 32nd minute of a Premiership match against Leeds.
He shot like a blind man. So woeful was Dia, that he became the Premiership's first substitute to be substituted, hooked off in the 53rd minute and to this day is cited as the worst player in Premier League history.
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2: Andriy Shevchenko
Milan to Chelsea, £30.7 million ($81 million)
Playing in Serie A, the great Andriy Shevchenko would routinely gather long balls with his left foot as three defenders closed within inches. He would casually nutmeg one tackler with his first touch, cut inside the next causing the remaining pair to run splat into each other then bury the thing in the back of the net as opposition managers competed to write bigger cheques.
So what happened at Chelsea? The Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho resented the presence of the Ukrainian being foisted on him. So the most successful manager Chelsea had known walked out because Chelsea's owner had bought Shevchenko without consultation. His arrival started the slide from an era of greatness at Stamford Bridge which wasn't helped by this next bloke's arrival.
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3: Michael Ballack
Bayern Munich to Chelsea (free)
Chelsea's bagging Michael Ballack for free was a no-brainer - like the Kiwi cricket team being told they could have Ricky Ponting for nothing. But what if it turned out Ponting didn't like L&P? And what if he thought Pineapple Lumps were gross? What if he sat about pining for home and never fitted in?
Such was the dilemma that landed on Chelsea's desk after they brought the Germany captain into their squad on the highest salary paid to a soccer player. Earning in excess of 130,000 ($343,000) a week, Ballack complained that houses were too expensive in London, saying he would rent, not buy.
Pardon? 130,000 a week and you can't afford a house? SuperSport has a freund with a sehr gut couch available in Acton if needed, Mike.
Despite Ballack's talent, he's now fourth midfield fiddle behind Deco, Lampard and Essien.
The label put on Ballack by The Times, "the worst import from Germany since The Scorpions' Wind of Change", does no justice to the 80s Euro rockers. Ballack's arrival was instrumental in widening the divide between the manager, Jose Mourinho, and the moneybags, Roman Abramovich.
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4: David Beckham
To LA Galaxy (£128 million)
The greatest names in the game have tried to take soccer to the US: Beckenbauer, Best, Pele, er, Beckham.
Technically, Beckham's transfer from Madrid to LA isn't an English one - but as poster boy of English soccer, he makes our list. The LA Galaxy will have been pleased with the 780 per cent increase in shirt sales since the Cirque de Beckham pitched camp on the right of midfield. But the £128 million ($338 million) they shelled out will leave a dead hole in the club when Beckham's move to Milan is complete.
Beckham said of his transfer to the LA Galaxy: "I'm coming there not to be a superstar. I'm coming there to be part of the team, to work hard and to hopefully win things. With me, it's about football. I'm coming there to make a difference ... I'm not saying me coming over to the States is going to make soccer the biggest sport in America ... But I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think I could make a difference"
And if you believe a word of that then you're dafter than he is.
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5: Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano
From Corinthians to West Ham (undisclosed)
Recipe for disaster: Take one proud old soccer team with a strong squad and aspirations of European football. Insert two bemused Argentines. Mix cursorily and pop into a roaring hot pressure cooker.
The presence of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano - brilliant players, both - in the West Ham squad of 2006-07 nearly sent the team into relegation. The problem? No one, the manger included, had the faintest idea how the doubtlessly brilliant pair had come to be there.
So murky were the arrangements, that the club is still cleaning up the financial debris.
The disruption they brought to West Ham's squad was acute. The side had won one game, drawn one and lost one when they arrived. From there they went into free-fall, losing eight games and drawing one.
Surely the pair weren't cynically using a lesser club to bag places in bigger teams? For an answer to that one, you'll need to ask Mascherano at Liverpool, or Tevez at Manchester United.
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6: Robbie Keane, Dimitar Berbatov and Jermain Defoe
Robbie Keane - Spurs to Liverpool (£20.3 million), Dimitar Berbatov - Spurs to Manchester United (£30.75 million), Jermain Defoe - Spurs to Portsmouth (£9 million).
There are two ways of looking at a fifth-place finish in a 20-horse race. You could say: "Well done Mr Manager, you've done good to bag us this slot. Here, have some money to spend in the transfer window."
Or, you could say: "You're sacked Mr Manager, you inept poltroon. We should be finishing fourth or higher. Oi, Mr New Manager, we're selling all the good strikers in the transfer window."
Spurs chose the latter path, dumping boss Martin Jol, and offloading Robbie Keane to Liverpool, Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United and Jermain Defoe to Portsmouth. Which is rather like sailing your leaky yacht to a lifejacket auction on the far side of the Cape Horn, cashing in big time, then setting sale for home. Hmm, how's this one going to end? Bottom place in the Premier League for the best part of the current season is how.
Sure, Berbatov wanted out, and Keane was drawn to the club of his youth. Defoe scooted south to Portsmouth in January, 2008 for 9 million, then scooted back to Spurs for 15 million one year later. Effectively, the north Londoners paid 6 million not to have access to their last decent striker for 12 months. Fifth place never looked better.
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7: Jonathan Woodgate
Newcastle to Real Madrid (£13.4m)
From signing the contract to taking the field, it took 516 days for Jonathan Woodgate to make his Real Madrid debut. And how did he thank his employers for their patience? By scoring a spectacular, diving-headed goal ... sadly, at the wrong end.
Pop it up the other end of the park with Cristiano Ronaldo on the end of it, and Woodgate's wonder-strike would have been hailed as a contender for goal of the season. But he wasn't done. The man who was still playing his soccer under the cloud of a conviction for affray (a sickening bashing that left a young Asian lad with a broken nose, a broken cheekbone, a fractured leg and a 12-teeth bite-mark) departed the field under another cloud. Yup, Woodgate picked up a red card after 66 minutes.
Oddly, the man they call "Village" (as in "idiot") became something of a people's hero for his stoic struggle and was mooted, briefly, as "Madrid's true leader". Common sense soon hit, and when Woodgate was sold, cheaply, to Boro, he was voted Real's worst signing of the 21st century by readers of Spain's sports daily, Diario Marca.
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8: Juan Sebastian Veron
Lazio to Manchester United (£28.1 million)
He could do anything, Seba Veron: tackle, pass, score great goals, reverse parallel park heavily laden trailers, blow smoke rings in the shape of a double helix - you name it. Provided, of course, that he was doing so in the walking-pace soccer arena that is Italy's Seira A.
Chuck him into some North England pit, however, with eight months of rain in the playing season, midfielders on day release from the nearest prison, no good cappuccino for a thousand miles and ankle-hacking maniacs intent upon reviving the spirit of the Falklands and suddenly the Argentine star looked less brilliant. No less expensive though.
Arriving at Manchester United from Lazio in 2000 on a £28.1 million ($75 million) five-year deal made him the most expensive transfer in English football at the time. And he was rubbish.
Sir Alex Ferguson disagreed. United's manager was unimpressed with journalists' questions about the expensive midfield white elephant: "On you go. I'm not f**king talking to you. He's a f**king great player. You are all f**king idiots."
Not "f**cking great" enough to avoid being sold to Chelsea at half price a few months later.
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9: Juan Sebastian Veron
Manchester United to Chelsea (£15 million)
Despite Sir Alex Ferguson kindly demonstrating that Veron couldn't fit into the Premiership, the newly-minted Chelsea rolled up with the biggest chequebook the game had seen. Fans of disastrous transfer deals can thank the liberalised free-market economy of Russia and Roman Abramovich's taste for bling. Abramovich's roubles brought the Argentine to Chelsea, where he made a grand total of 14 appearances.
This deal made Veron the most-expensive footballer in history, thanks to the big-money transfers that attached themselves to his name. His cumulative total of £77 million ($203 million) was surpassed last year when Nicolas Anelka went to Chelsea, taking his mark to £85 million.
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10: Gareth Bale
Southampton to Spurs (£5 million)
Last weekend's Tottenham v Portsmouth match was a joy for the connoisseurs ... not connoisseurs of great football, mind you. It was connoisseurs of Gareth Bale's disastrous Spurs career who had most to celebrate. Going into what had, oddly, become a crucial match for both sides, the Welsh left-back had 21 league games for Tottenham Hotspur under his belt without a single victory.
Never once had Bale triumphantly punched the air at the fulltime whistle while wearing a Spurs shirt in the Premier League. So pity the poor lad on Monday when he once again trudged forlornly out to battle. As the full-time whistle sounded Spurs fans could rightly applaud a handsome strike to returning star Jermain Defoe. But they would have been applauding a win if the hapless Bale had not managed the thinnest of deflections on a dreadful David Nugent shot, putting the ball into his own net.
He gave Portsmouth the goal they needed for a 1-1 draw and continued the crappiest record in Premier League history. G. Bale; played 22, won 0.
Once courted by Manchester United, Bale's time at Spurs is sure to cast a shadow over any future career moves while providing succour for pub quiz organisers short of a sporting oddity.