4. Ion Radu - Two Tonnes of Meat
Having been relegated from the Romanian top flight in 1998, CS Jiul Petrosani found themselves both struggling financially and overburdened with players. Unfortunately trying to shift those players to raise real cash proved tricky for Petrosani, but that didn't mean that they were out of options. The club's chairman took the novel approach of selling midfielder Ion Radu to Chimia Ramnicu Valcea, recently relegated to the Romanian Fourth Division, in exchange for two tonnes of beef and pork. The meat, the chairman stated, could then be sold to pay the wages of the rest of the Petrosani team.
How did he do? Whether Radu was really worth that huge heap of butcher's produce is kind of debatable as Valcea continued to struggle both in football terms and in raising non-meat based funds. After six years languishing at the regional level of Romanian football, the club went bankrupt and dissolved in 2004.