If you’re a regular reader of transfer gossip columns, you’ll no doubt be familiar with fantastical tabloid reports about how two European giants are going to trade two superstar footballers in a financially complicated swap deal.
We’ve been around the block enough times to recognise that swap deals rarely come to fruition, and that we’re unlikely to see Romelu Lukaku and Victor Osimhen move between Chelsea and Napoli in the coming weeks. Never say never, though.
Indeed, the swap deal is something that used to happen with a fair degree of regularity – often involving some world-class players at the biggest clubs. Here are 11 of the biggest swap deals in football history.
11. Francesco Coco & Clarence Seedorf
It wouldn’t feel right to mention Seedorf without the apparently compulsory mention for his four European Cups with three different clubs.
- The midfielder had two of the four in the bag by the time of his oft-forgotten trophyless mid-career stint at Inter Milan. In 2002, the Nerazzurri made the quite frankly baffling
decision to trade the Dutchman with for Italian left-wingback Francesco Coco (who? – exactly).
Seedorf went on to win another two Champions Leagues with AC Milan, while Coco didn’t do a great deal of anything at Inter and hung up his boots at the age of 30.
If you’ve looking for a deeper dive on Coco’s strange career, we’ve got you covered.
10. Diego Simeone & Christian Vieri
Serie A is going to be something of a common theme here.
Italian clubs love a perplexing swap deal, and they don’t come much bigger than two Serie A cult heroes – Diego Simeone and Christian Vieri – moving in opposite directions between Lazio and Inter in the summer of 1999.
It wasn’t a direct swap, though. Inter also paid a world-record £28million fee, and it meant spending on Vieri reached a mammoth £57million over the past two years, the Italian striker accounting for three of the world’s 10 most expensive transfers at the time.
