There’s no art to buying top footballers when your coffers are full, and you don’t know what to do with the money. A clever and experienced manager can sometimes get a quality player for free. The following chapters feature ten big-name players who didn’t cost their new employers a penny on the transfer market. From Paul Pogba to Ruud Gullit and Sol Campbell, the following are the 11 best footballers who moved to a new club for free!
There must have been several rewrites of the table with record amounts for football transfers in 1992. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Papin, who transferred from Marseille to AC Milan for £10 million, soon was trumped by Italian forward Gianluca Vialli, who went from Sampdoria to Juventus Turin for £12 million.
Vialli as captain, led the Old Lady to the domestic title in 1995, also winning the Italian Cup and Super Cup in the same year. Two years before that, he had enjoyed an overall win in the UEFA Cup and lifted the Champions League winners’ trophy over his head in 1996. Juventus never regretted buying him, but they did regret that he left for Chelsea completely free in 1996.
Vialli spent the last three seasons of his career at Stamford Bridge and was still a hugely valuable player, particularly in the first two. In a Chelsea jersey, Vialli played 78 games in which he scored 40 goals and helped the club to win the FA Cup, the League Cup, the Cup Winners’ Cup and subsequently lifted the UEFA Super Cup winners trophy above his head.
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