Charlton Athletic completed the biggest shock transfer deals of all-time in 1982 as they brought in Allen Simonsen from Barcelona. He made his debut for Charlton on this day back in 1982.
Simonsen had won the Balon d’Or just five years before and moved to the South London club after turning down Real Madrid and First Division Tottenham Hotspur. If the same transfer were to happen today, it would be like Lionel Messi joining Charlton from Barcelona!
There was a reason behind this quite unbelievable transfer. Back in 1982, there were rules on how many foreign players could play for one team.
Spanish sides were only allowed to start two foreign players and Simonsen played alongside German Bernd Schuster at Barcelona. When the Catalan club signed Argentinian supreme Diego Maradona after the World Cup, it meant the three were competing for two spaces in the starting line-up.
Simonsen took it as a personal insult that he had to fight for his place in the team and asked for his contract to be cancelled. He opted to join English Second Division Charlton Athletic in a deal worth £300,000 in order to play football away from the limelight.
The Dane’s move to the club brought great attention from the world media and had quite an impact on the attendance figures at The Valley. 10,807 fans came to watch Simonsen’s home debut on 13th November 1982 against Middlesbrough, more than double the previous game when only 5,278 watched the 3-0 victory over Blackburn Rovers two weeks earlier.
Sadly for Charlton fans, the club were unable to afford Simonsen’s wages and had struggled to fund the transfer deal. He would make only 16 appearances for the club, scoring 9 goals before rejoining his first club Vejle BK in his homeland Denmark.
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