PSG: De Gea, Choupo-Moting, Maehle… Like Ziyech, their transfer was stopped at the last minute
Chelsea Blues attacking midfielder Hakim Ziyech, who is set to join PSG for a few days on a six-month loan, will ultimately not arrive to strengthen the Paris group. Blame the riot on the exchange of documents between the two clubs. With the contract not approved and the club’s appeal rejected by the LFP, the chapter closes.
However, the Moroccan is not the first victim of a failed transfer in the final moments of the transfer window. Whether it’s winter or summer, the transfer market concentrates countless transactions that have started in the last 24 hours. In this lot, blunders are common and some transactions inevitably fail.
De Gea and the Legend of the One Minute Late Fax
David De Gea and his aborted move to Real Madrid is arguably the most famous case. In the summer of 2015, the Manchester United goalkeeper is due to commit to the Spanish club, but in the end he will never wear the Merengues tunic.. The fault of a fax that arrived at 00:01, immediately after the “deadline”, will explain part of the Spanish press. But according to the journalist of the Madrid daily El País, Diego Torres, the story is completely different: a very successful Keylor Navas, Florentino Perez, the president of Real Madrid, a Manchester United who did not sell, who continue to negotiate and plan to release him next summer, and a goalkeeper who is upset about it. gambling are the four ingredients why David De Gea is still wearing a Red Devils shirt seven years later.
Two former Ligue 1 residents, Eric Maxime Choupo-Moting and Adrien Silva, also suffered botched transfers minutes later. The Cameroonian, then a Hamburg player, saw this setback in 2011 when he had to deal with Köln FC. The former Parisian is finally staying in northern Germany as a fax sent to the League to confirm his contract arrives 12 minutes late. In similar circumstances, it was during the 2017 summer transfer window that ex-Monegasque Adrien Silva saw Portugal’s move from Sporting to Leicester fail within 14 seconds.
Maehle misses OM for 10 minutes
There are also cases where the seller club deliberately misses the deal. The latest case, Senegalese Pathé Ciss from Rayo Vallecano, was close to signing for Olympique Lyonnais on Tuesday evening before the deal fell through. The midfielder criticizes his leaders for deliberately prolonging the negotiations: “They were selfish and behaved badly. They only thought of their own interests. They were irresponsible and disrespectful “.
Likewise in October 2020, Joakim Maehle, then at Genk, is in advanced talks with Olympique de Marseille. Ten minutes after the end of the transfer window, he learns that the transfer will not take place: “I got a call from my sports director saying that there is no final agreement because they want a little more money. (…) I threw the phone away. It was very difficult to sleep after that. I warned my family and they ruined everything at the last minute “. Player Atalanta will take on Bergamo next transfer window and explode into the Euros next summer.
Finally, the award for discontinued operations goes to Yannis Salibur. In 2017, he managed to miss not one, but two consecutive transfers. So it was at Guingamp that the French winger saw his move to Hull City scuppered by the English club in the final minutes of the winter transfer window due to the lack of documents needed to be sent in time. Flying 10 million sales for Guingamp. Re-elect on August 31st and it’s AS Saint-Etienne who have offered 8 million to their fellow Breton in the final hours of the transfer window. A salary story disrupts the transaction this time. As the story teases, the player will eventually join the Greens in the form of a paid loan… on August 31, 2018, after one year.
