When Juan Sebastian Veron signed for Manchester United in 2001 it was hailed as a transfer coup for the club. At his previous club Lazio, Veron had been the catalyst for the club winning the Scudetto, the Coppa Italia and the Italian Super Cup convincing Sir Alex Ferguson to fork out £28.1M for him. It started well enough for Veron, but while fellow transfer signing Ruud Van Nistelrooy made headlines by banging in the goals, the then 26-year-old failed to contribute to the team. It was never going to be easy for the most expensive transfer signing in British transfer history at the time, with David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Roy Keane and Paul Scholes all occupying the first team places. With his time in the team running out Veron was shipped out to a newly Russian owned Chelsea for just £8M. In his autobiography, Sir Alex Ferguson wrote of his difficulties managing Veron, claiming that he never made an effort to learn English, perhaps a reason for the once revered midfielder's downfall in English football. Signed to help United in the same way that Jaap Stam, Dwight Yorke and Jesper Blomqvist had in 1998, Veron was not the player he had been hyped up to be. With a host of big names already at the club and a testing relationship with the manager, he left under a cloud as United's biggest top level waste of money for a long time. Can you think of anymore? Comment below who you think was a record waste of money.
I’m a 23-year-old journalist having previously produced content for A Stamford Bridge Too Far, The Sun Newspaper and VincoSport. I currently write for Formula One Fancast and What Culture producing weekly blogs and features. I am a co-founder, writer and editor of Tibs News and am a big follower of football, Formula One and combat sports such as MMA, boxing and wrestling.
