With seven managers since 2016 and now a third director of football, Everton's recruitment in recent times has come under scrutiny as a squad widely reported to have the seventh-highest wage bill in the Premier League battles to stay in the division. International recruitment is common place now but a generation ago before widespread global scouting and easy to access digital footage, casting your net overseas was often a precarious business.
The 1990s were a ‘golden era’ if you could call it that, for audacious Everton transfer pursuits of foreign players that didn’t quite come off. Those of you who watched last year’s BBC documentary series Fever Pitch! The Rise of the Premier League will recall how it was a time of change both on and off the pitch in the upper echelons of English football.
While the Blues had long been one of the game’s powerhouses, known as the ‘Mersey Millionaires’ during John Moores’ ownership of the club, had enjoyed their most-successful era in the previous decade of the 1980s and were one of the lead players in the creation of the Premier League under Sir Philip Carter, they struggled to keep up with the game’s elite as the 20 th century drew to a close.
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Everton hadn’t even signed a player from beyond the British Isles until the arrivals of Swede Stefan Rehn and Dutchman Ray Atteveld in 1989 and neither of those to made great waves on Merseyside, particularly the former, who despite winning 45 caps for his country, made just six appearances in England and suffered the ignominy in what proved to be his last game of being substituted by Colin Harvey after earlier coming off the bench himself.
Indeed when the Blues lifted the 1995 FA Cup, their only piece of silverware during the decade – and last major trophy to date – Rehn’s compatriot Anders Limpar was the only non-British player in Joe Royle’s starting line-up. While Everton were perhaps slower on the uptake than some of their rivals when it came to recruiting overseas talent, at times it wasn’t for the want of trying. Here are some of the most-notable exotic names they attempted to bring to Goodison Park but ultimately failed to snap up during this period.
Gheorghe Hagi
Widely-regarded as the greatest Romanian footballer of all-time, Hagi’s nicknames included ‘The Maradona of the Carpathians’ and ‘Regele’ (The King) among fans in his home country while supporters of his final club Galatasaray dubbed him ‘Comandante’ (The Commander). A creative attacking playmaker renowned for his dribbling, technique, passing, shooting and all-round vision with a wand of a left foot, Hagi would have brought a sprinkling of stardust to an Everton side in search of inspiration in the early 1990s.
Perhaps alerted by his contacts back in Spain, Howard Kendall tried to bring Hagi to Goodison Park during the first season of his second spell in charge in 1990/91 when the player faced an uncertain future during his first year outside of Romania with Real Madrid. At a time before Premier League cash had made England an enticing prospect for talent from across the globe, the player himself poured cold water over the possibility of moving to these shores, dismissing the state of the pitches and style of play.
Although Hagi stayed put at the Bernabeu in the summer of 1991, Everton tried again for him in October that year with Kendall telling the ECHO: “Contact has been made from Spain. I believe there was a change of mind last week with Real considering making the player available. I now have to decide whether he is still the right type for us, based on the fact that I have signed Beardsley.”
Hagi would depart Real the following summer but it would be for Italian side Brescia, not the Blues. Everton would be linked with him again in the summer of 1996 but Joe Royle dismissed the links and the now 31-year-old quit La Liga for a second time, switching from Barcelona to Galatasaray.
Dino Baggio and Pierluigi Casaraghi
This potential double swoop from 1997 came to light a year later courtesy of Everton centre-back Slaven Bilic. The Croatian international had agreed to join the Blues when Royle was still manager in 1996/97 although he deferred his switch to help West Ham United avoid relegation from the Premier League.
By the time he moved to Merseyside, the Blues were managerless with Kendall eventually taking the reins later that summer, returning for a third stint in charge. Following the end of his debut season at Goodison Park – with the side only just staying up on goal difference – Bilic reflected on the world-class acquisitions that he’d been told would be joining him at the club.
In an exclusive interview with the ECHO’s Garry Doolan, he claimed that owner Peter Johnson had agreed to bankroll a £15million package for a duo of Italian stars, saying: “Joe told me I’m going to buy you, I’m going to buy Dino Baggio and I’m going to buy Pierluigi Casiraghi. He told me he wanted me to be his leader on the field. He said he wanted us to be the spine of the team, with me at the back, Baggio in the middle and he wanted to Casiraghi to play with Duncan Ferguson.”
Instead, Bilic was joined by the likes of Tony Thomas, John O’Kane, Carl Tiler, Danny Williamson and Mitch Ward as Johnson severely tightened the purse strings.
Muller
Richarlison is the latest among a series of Brazilian to have starred for Everton in recent years but despite making his way all the way from Sao Paulo to Goodison Park for negotiations, Muller departed the Blues’ ground in 1994 having not signed a contract. The ECHO reported that the deal fell through after six weeks of protracted negotiations when the player’s advisers demanded a tax free salary.
Manager Mike Walker blamed the influence of agents on the collapse and said: “I don’t think the player was the problem. He looked more embarrassed about the whole thing than anyone. We sent a contract out to him a few days ago which he agreed to in full, but then an adviser turned up with him demanding more. I was disappointed the player didn’t make it clear to them that he wanted to join us, but at the end of the day they are his men and he has to stand by them.”
Once safely back in South America, the 28-year-old – who would instead join Japanese side Kashiwa Reysol the following year – claimed the major sticking point was not an expectation for a tax free salary, rather a demand to become a free agent after his four-year contract had expired (a right all professionals over 24 are now given since the Bosman ruling).
Muller said: “I was led to believe that I would own my contract after I had spent four seasons there. Everton later said this was not possible. I was also led to believe that I would be bought a car and a house but Everton said that if they did that for me they would have to do it for their other players also.”
Martin Dahlin
Impressing for Sweden on home turf at Euro ’92, Martin Dahlin first attracted Everton’s attention during Kendall’s second spell in charge. After missing out on Cambridge United’s Dion Dublin to Manchester United – Kendall would quit less than 18 months later when the board refused to back his move to take the striker from Old Trafford – the Blues boss was looking to increase his side’s firepower.
The ECHO’s Ken Rogers reported on August 6 that Kendall was perfectly placed to open negotiations for Dahlin who had already scored for his German club Borussia Monchengladbach in a 2-1 pre-season win over Everton and was set to face the Blues for a second time that summer in the Goodison Park Centenary game. Dahlin was described as the Bundesliga outfit’s ‘star turn’ who “looks extremely comfortable on the ball, gives himself time and space, and has that ability to use a short burst of pace in and around the box to get into shooting positions.”
A fee of just over £1million was mooted but four days later it was claimed that Kendall’s interest had receded after Dahlin saw very little of the ball during the match at Goodison although the club were set to send a scout to watch him play for Sweden against Norway later in the month. Two years later, now under Mike Walker, Everton revived their interest.
On June 20 1994, the ECHO reported that the Blues were trying to tempt Dahlin with a £300,000 a year contract – and hoped both Norwich City’s Chris Sutton and Coventry City’s Peter Ndlovu would both join him. Everton offered a £1.84million fee for Dahlin and although Italy and France were believed to be priorities for him ahead of England, he admitted: “It is a very good offer – a real rise in my wages.”
Eight days later though it emerged that Dahlin – who would remain at ‘Gladbach until joining Roma in 1996 before finally making it to the Premier League at Blackburn Rovers a year later – and had decided to stay put after his club increased his annual salary to £250,000. He said: “Everton’s offer was a good one and very attractive, but deep down inside me, England did not appeal. That was the decisive factor.”
Fabrizio Ravanelli
Unlike the other targets, the Italian striker, nicknamed ‘The White Feather’ because of his prematurely grey hair, was already playing in England when Everton tried to sign him but that didn’t make negotiations any easier. Ravanelli made it to Goodison Park but like Muller he re-emerged from the Blues’ stadium without a deal being completed.
The former Juventus man had netted 31 times for Middlesbrough the previous season (16 of which came in the Premier League) but was available for transfer following the Teessiders’ relegation. At a time when £5.75million Nick Barmby was Everton’s record signing – also from Boro – Ravanelli’s proposed fee was £7.5million (a figure the Blues would not end up splashing out until they landed Andrew Johnson from Crystal Palace some nine years’ later) with the prospect of the overall package potentially costing more than £15million.
Ravanelli jetted in on July 16, visiting Everton’s Bellefield training ground then Goodison but the club issued a statement the following day which read: “Everton made an offer to him of a contract. He has rejected that and unless there is a change of heart from the player’s side there will be no deal.”
The ECHO reported that after talks with Kendall – now back in charge for a third stint – and director Clifford Finch, it quickly became apparent that the player’s outrageous financial demands would be a stumbling block and that the Blues boss was turning his attentions to Newcastle United’s Les Ferdinand. A further 24 hours later, Kendall accused Middlesbrough of using Everton as a lever to push other clubs into signing Ravanelli, who would end up going to Olympique Marseille later in the summer, and said: “It is known we are looking for a striker and we could be being used to push other clubs into a decision.”
