14 ridiculous transfers that nearly happened: Maradona, Ibrahimovic…

Former Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid stars are among the players who came close to completing bizarre moves to the likes of Leeds United, Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers.

The likes of Pep Guardiola, Diego Maradona and Johan Cruyff have all been involved in some of the best ‘nearly-transfers’ you could imagine.

Every club has a story like these, and it was impossible to include them all, but Blackburn Rovers really do seem to have more than most.

Ahead of Manchester City’s FA Cup clash with Wigan Athletic, Guardiola admitted that he almost joined the Latics upon their promotion to the Premier League in 2005, but he was deemed not good enough to compete for a place in midfield with Jimmy Bullard and Graham Kavanagh.

“I was not good enough, that is the truth,” Guardiola said. “I was old, really old!

“I knocked on the door, I tried to come here to play in English football, but I was not able.

“The same happened here at Manchester City, when I came here with Stuart Pearce. They were so clever! I was not good enough.”

READ: Hussein Yasser: Pep said he’d rather retire than sign for long-ball Man City

Blackburn Rovers have a pretty good history when it comes to ridiculous transfer rumours, but let’s start with Ronaldinho.

Venky’s made the former World Player of the Year an offer of £20million over three years to move to Lancashire from AC Milan.

“He is keen to play in the EPL and I think that goes in our favour,” Venky’s chair Anuradha Desai told BBC Radio Lancashire.

Desai also confirmed Blackburn were hopeful of signing David Beckham and Damien Duff (again). We don’t need to tell you whether any of these players moved to Ewood Park.

While managing Cardiff City, Neil Warnock revealed he was convinced not to sign Van Dijk