What a waste of money....

Today we look at players who cost the earth for some clubs and who cost the fans their sanity. Heres a selection of million-pound flops and what became of them....


Massimo Taibi

Signed from Vicenza for a hefty £4.5 million by Manchester United in 1999, off the back of ironically their most successful period to date, Massimo Taibi was to be the solution to all problems between the sticks at Old Trafford after the departure of Peter Schmeichel to Aston Villa. Or was he? Massimo didn't make the best of start endearing himself to the United faithful as he flapped against Liverpool gifting the opener to Sami Hyypia before producing a man-of-the match performance as United eventually won 3-2. He then went on to provide a moment etched in all our memories as the tamest of shots from Matt le Tissier squirmed through the grasp....and then legs of the hapless Italian and with that went Taibi's career in England with United. Since then however Massimo has moved on and the man dubbed 'the blind Venetian' has gone on to become only one of two goalkeepers ever to score in Serie A for open play after an 87th minute headed equalizer against Udinese for Reggina. Now in retirement Taibi is a coach with Sicilian side Palermo.


Corrado Grabbi
Staying in Italy and next we come to a striker who cost precisely £3.37.5m per goal for Blackburn Rovers between 2001-2004, a signing which would have had Jack Walker turning in his grave. Grabbi on the face of it didn't have a sign about him that would lead him to become rated only as one of the worst pieces of football business since the dawn of time, with an incredible goals record for Italian side Ternana and a successful loan spell with Ravenna, Grabbi was indeed hot property....that was until he set foot into Lancashire and into quite a large 'farmers pat'. Grabbi failed miserably to adapt to the English game and while the world laughed at Blackburn, Grabbi made a swift return to Italy where most recently he has played for Arezzo of Serie B and more recently swiss second division side Bellinzona. Grabbi hit the headlines in 2006 in the match-fixing scandal that rocked Italian football as one of the victims, after a much publicised fall-out between himself and former Juventus chairman Luciano Moggi Grabbi has yet to appear on our footballing radar....

Bosko Balaban

'The Croatian sensation' must have been the headlines dreamed by Villa supporters after the news of £5.8m signing Bosko Balaban filtered through across the airwaves of the west midlands. The sensation however was to be more of a dispensation. Balaban incredibly failed to find the net in his time at Villa park, in fact the only thing that ever was hit at the time was Doug Ellis's pension after blowing a whopping £20,000 a week on Bosko's wages coupled with an enormous transfer fee to boot, Bosko's contract was bound for the shredder and the rotund forward was off to Belgium where he regained his form with 25 goals in 24 games in his first season with Club Brugge before going on to become a legend at Dinamo Zagreb in his native Croatia. This however did not go without incident as Balaban was fined a bank-busting, jaw-dropping 100KN (14 euro to you and I) for a fascist salute aimed at fans of Inter Zapresic. Balaban today continues to bang in the goals for Panionios in the Greek super league.

Three more on the way tomorrow.......