Willing to join PSG for a few days already for a six-month loan, Hakim Ziyech the attacking midfielder of the Chelsea Blues will not ultimately come to strengthen the Parisian group.
The fault of an imbroglio around an exchange of documents between the two clubs.
As the contract has not been approved and the club's appeal rejected by the LFP, the chapter is closed.
The Moroccan is however not the first victim of a failed transfer in the final moments of the transfer window.
Whether in winter or summer, the transfer market concentrates an incalculable number of transactions initiated in the last 24 hours.
In this lot, blunders are commonplace and some operations inevitably fail.
De Gea and the One Minute Late Fax Legend
David De Gea and his aborted transfer to Real Madrid is undoubtedly the best known case.
In the summer of 2015, the Manchester United goalkeeper had to sign with the Spanish club but ultimately never put on the Merengues tunic
.
The fault of a fax arriving at 00:01, just after the "deadline", will tell part of the Spanish press.
But according to the journalist of the Madrid daily
El Pais,
Diego Torres, the story is quite different: a very successful Keylor Navas, a Florentino Perez, the president of Real Madrid, who drags out negotiations and plans to get him free the following summer, a Manchester United not selling and a goalkeeper upset by this gamble are four ingredients that seven years later, David De Gea still wears the jersey of the Red Devils
.
Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Adrien Silva, two former Ligue 1 residents, were also the subject of failed transfers for a few minutes late.
The Cameroonian, then player of Hamburg, saw this misadventure in 2011 when he had to engage with FC Cologne.
The ex-Parisian finally stays in northern Germany because the fax sent to the League to approve his contract arrives 12 minutes late.
In similar circumstances, it was during the 2017 summer transfer window that former Monegasque Adrien Silva saw his transfer from Sporting Portugal to Leicester fail by 14 seconds.
Maehle misses OM for 10 minutes
There are also cases where the selling club deliberately misses the deal.
The latest case, Pathé Ciss, the Senegalese international from Rayo Vallecano, was close to signing with Olympique Lyonnais on Tuesday evening before the case fell through.
The midfielder criticizes his leaders for having deliberately dragged out the negotiations: “They were selfish and behaved badly.
They only thought of their own interests.
They were irresponsible and disrespectful
.”
🚨 CISS se queda en el Rayo Vallecano y ESTALLA contra el club:
“Han sido egoístas y se han comportado mal.
Ha pensado solo extra interested.
Han sido irresponsible and irrespetuoso”.
pic.twitter.com/raPqzqv3yP
— Union Rayo Live (@UnionRayoLive) January 31, 2023
In the same vein in October 2020, Joakim Maehle, then in Genk, is in advanced talks with Olympique de Marseille.
He learns ten minutes from the end of the transfer window that the transfer will not take place: "I received a call from my sporting director saying that there was no final agreement because they had asked a little more money.
(...) I threw the phone away from me.
It was very hard to sleep afterwards.
I had warned my family and they ruined everything at the last minute
”.
The player
will commit to the following transfer window at Atalanta Bergamo and will explode at the Euro the following summer.
No words
— Joakim Mæhle (@Joakim_maehle) October 6, 2020
Finally, the prize for aborted transactions goes to Yannis Salibur.
In 2017, he achieved the feat of missing not one but two successive transfers.
So in Guingamp, the French winger saw his departure for Hull City shattered in the last minutes of the winter transfer window, for lack of documents necessary for his arrival sent in time by the English club.
A sale of 10 million which flies away for Guingamp.
August 31, rebelote, and it is AS Saint-Etienne which offers 8 million to its Breton counterparts in the final hours of the transfer window.
A salary story this time derails the transaction.
As the story is teased, the player will eventually join the Greens
in the form of a paying loan... on August 31, 2018, one year later.
