Top Tenner: Unusual transfer fees

Posted Saturday, February 01, 2014 by ESPN

Top Tenner: Unusual transfer fees
Ian Wright is an Arsenal hero but it was Crystal Palace that 'lifted' him to fame.

Top Tenner discovers the most unusal transfer fees ever paid for a player -- including a lot of meat, for some reason.

10) Walter Restrepo -- Fort Lauderdale Strikers to San Antonio Scorpions

The North American Soccer League (or NASL, to use the abbreviated version) is long-associated with Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and George Best winding their careers profitably down back in the 70s. It's now the second-tier of football in the USA, and now, as back then, they seem to do things differently. A case in point is Walter Restrepo's transfer from Fort Lauderdale Strikers to San Antonio Scorpions at the start of January this year. Midfielder Restrepo headed to Texas, and the Scorpions compensated their rivals with 'free hotel and transport' for their games in San Antonio this year. Only on the second night of the trips, mind -- NASL rules apparently state the team in question has to pay for the first, for some reason. This came about thanks to Bill Brendel, a Scorpions sponsor who also owns the hotels that usually host visiting teams in San Antonio. “The Scorpions reached out to us to see if we could be creative,” Brendel told Sports Illustrated. “It was kind of a win-win for everyone.”

9) Franco Di Santo -- Tiro Suizo Argentina to Audax Italiano

It was always a slight curiosity, or perhaps a triumph of hope over logic, that Franco Di Santo managed to stick around as a Chelsea player for such a relatively long time. And then that he played in the Premier League for Wigan. And continues to enjoy gainful employment in the Bundesliga with Werder Bremen. Chelsea paid 3.4 million pounds for the striker in 2008, but the fee Audax Italiano, his club in Chile, stumped up was a little more reasonable, sending Tiro Suizo Argentina, Di Santo's first club, a couple of goal nets and 40 litres of paint. Obviously.

8) Ernie Blenkinsop -- Cudworth to Hull City

Ernie Blenkinsop is a name that could only possibly have existed in the north of England in the 1920s. And, as it happens, his transfer fee is one that could only possibly have existed in the north of England in the 1920s. Blenkinsop was a left-back who played for England 26 times and captained them on five occasions, and as a youth played for Cudworth, a small team hailing from South Yorkshire, before in 1921 Hull liked the look of this 19-year-old bruiser and purchased him. The fee was 100 pounds, which if we stopped the story there would not be especially unusual, but they also threw a barrel of beer in to sweeten the deal. The brand of beer unfortunately remains unrecorded.

7) Hugh McLenahan -- Stockport to Manchester United

It seems the 1920s was a good time for settling fees with consumables. Back in 1927, Stockport were in some financial difficulty (how times change, eh?), and thus held a fund-raising bazaar to ease their concerns. Manchester United, sensing an opportunity to nab half-back Hugh McLenahan, got a little creative, and assistant manager Louis Rocca (the man who claimed to have come up with the very name 'Manchester United' in 1902) donated a freezer-full of ice cream for them to sell and raise some cash in return for their man. Rocca's family owned an ice cream business -- he didn't just have it lying around in his garage or something. That would've been really weird.

6) Collins John -- DES Nijverdal to FC Twente

Nijverdal is a small town in north-east Holland. It is not, shall we say, a traditional and famous seat of learning. Perhaps that why, when FC Twente started sniffing around Collins John, who would of course go on to play for Fulham, DES Nijverdal wanted to broaden their minds a little. Thus, they didn't ask for anything as low-brow as money, but rather a set of encyclopedias and assorted other learning material for a local school. John played a couple of games for Barnet last season and briefly turned out for Polish titans Piast Gliwice earlier this season, but currently appears to be 'between clubs.'

5) Kenneth Kristensen – Vindbjart to Floey

What are you worth your weight in? Gold? Iron pyrite? Shrimp? If you answered yes to the last one, it's possible you are Kenneth Kristensen, for that was the 'fee' paid by Norwegian third division side Floey to Vindbjart for the striker. "Kenneth was very eager to play for Floey, and we didn't want to be difficult. But he was under contract for us, so of course we had to demand some kind of compensation," said Vindbjart club president Vidar Ulstein, and of course the obvious answer to that question is shrimp. Of course it is. Apparently the seafood in question was actually measured out in a boxing style 'weigh-in' before a game, with Kristensen on one side of the scales and the shrimp on the other. The final tally was around 170lb. You could say they 'shelled out' for him. Or not. Whatever.

4) Marius Cioara – UT Arad to Regal Horia

Hopefully Romanian defender Marius Cioara doesn't find out about the Kristensen fee, because he might think he was a little under-priced. For Cioara was purchased by Regal Horia from UT Arad for the princely sum of 15kg of sausages in 2008. Only 15kg? That's roughly one-fifth of a Kristensen. Unless you think sausages are more valuable than shrimp. Perhaps Cioara was upset about the fee, because shortly after the deal was done, he quit football to start a new life in Spain. "We are upset because we lost twice,” a Horia official said at the time. “Firstly because we lost a good player and secondly because we lost our team's food for a whole week.”

3) Ion Radu – Jiul Petrosani to Valcea

Clearly, meat holds plenty of currency in Romania, because Cioara's transfer wasn't the only one that involved a main course instead of hard currency. And this one might have made Cioara feel even worse than the Kristensen deal, because Jiul Petrosani 'sold' midfielder Radu to Valcea for a whopping two tonnes of beef and pork. "We will sell the meat, then pay all the other players' salaries," said the Petrosani club president at the time, missing the perfect opportunity for the world's biggest mixed grill. 1998 was a busy year for creative transfers at Petrosani -- Liviu Baicea was sold to UT Arad (them again) for 10 footballs.

2) Gary Pallister -- Billingham Town to Middlesbrough

At one point, Gary Pallister was the most expensive defender in Britain, when Manchester United paid Middlesbrough a then-eye watering 2.3 million pounds for the centre-half in 1989. Indeed, it was the second-highest fee a British club had ever paid for a player, behind only Ian Rush's return from Juventus to Liverpool the previous year. Boro's bank manager must have been delighted with the deal, given what they 'paid' for him in the first place, which basically amounted to a set of training ground sundries. Billingham Town, the non-league side Pallister began his career at, received a set of kit, some goal nets and a bag of balls for their man. Hopefully they were nice balls.

1) Ian Wright – Greenwich Borough to Crystal Palace

All in all, Crystal Palace did pretty well out of Ian Wright. After he was spotted playing for Greenwich Borough, he was invited for a trial at Selhurst Park (a trial he very nearly didn't attend and had an understanding boss at his day job to thank for) and was snapped up by then-Palace boss Steve Coppell. He went on to score 126 goals for the Eagles and help them to promotion to the First Division and the 1990 FA Cup final, before being sold to Arsenal for 2.5 million pounds in 1991, which was a club record and a pretty penny at the time. And indeed it was almost all profit for Palace, because the fee they paid to compensate Greenwich was a set of weights. Hopefully there were some pretty buff chaps wandering around east London in 1991.