The past week in Australian football has been lit up by the move of the Socceroos number one in Mat Ryan to a massive club in Arsenal.
The news prompted a discussion on the ABC Grandstand Football podcast with my co-host Robbie Cornthwaite to determine the biggest Australian transfers of all-time among male players.
Note, this is not a list of the most expensive deals but simply the biggest moves.
The key criteria are: the status of the player at the time in the Australian game, fused with the status and size of the club at the time that the player joined them.
Other factors like the length of the deal must also come into play, along with the role the player would have at the club. It was Mat Ryan’s backup role at the Gunners that ultimately cost him a top 10 spot along with someone like Trent Sainsbury at Inter Milan, for example.
Here is the top 10.
The unlucky ones
I want to start by mentioning the ones who just missed the cut as it highlights how competitive this list was. Tim Cahill was number 11 on the list having emerged as a future Australian star after leading Millwall to an FA Cup Final before signing for Everton for 1.5 million pounds ($2.7 million).
Brett Emerton was the biggest name in the NSL when he left Sydney Olympic for Feyenoord in 2000. Tom Rogic was of a similar status when he moved to Scottish giants Celtic.
Chelsea weren’t the Chelsea we know today but still a prestigious club when Dave Mitchell joined in 1988 and when Mark Schwarzer joined them, the Socceroos legend was in the latter stages of his career.
John Kosmina was an Aussie on the rise when he joined Arsenal in 1978 but would only establish his reputation fully after returning to the NSL.
Craig Moore was a kid when he joined Rangers for the first time, Parma had just started to fade when Vinnie Grella joined them from Empoli while every move that John Aloisi and Lucas Neill made were significant but perhaps the clubs weren’t always the biggest.
They were all considered along with many others but it’s tough to crack this 10.
10: Mark Bresciano to Parma (2002)
At a time when so many of his compatriots were generating bigger headlines due to the far better exposure of the Premier League, Mark Bresciano’s star had risen in Italy.
So much so that a Parma side managed by former Italian boss Cesare Prandelli and possessing names such as Adrian Mutu, Alberto Gilardino and Hidetoshi Nakata to name a few, paid a then-Australian record fee of 7 million Euros ($11.1 million) to Empoli for the Socceroos schemer as they went on to secure back-to-back fifth-place finishes in Serie A and make a UEFA Cup semi-final.
9: Frank Farina to Bari (1991)
There was no bigger name in Australian Football than that of Farina in the early 90s, having moved to Belgium and flourished, winning a league title, two domestic cups and a golden boot.
Italy then came calling and he became the first Australian to feature in Serie A after an Australian-record transfer fee of $3.5 million.
Had it been a bigger club than Bari that he joined, who were relegated that season, he’d have been much higher up on the list.
8: Robbie Slater to Blackburn (1994)
While Robbie Slater was one of the Socceroos’ shining lights at the time, Blackburn Rovers were not necessarily a big club. However, it must be taken into account that they were in the midst of a spending splurge in pursuit of the Premier League title at the time, which they ended up securing in 1994-95.
Slater was brought in by Kenny Dalglish for 300,000 pounds ($537,500) after dominating for Lens in France at the same time that Chris Sutton was signed to partner Alan Shearer and lead Blackburn to glory.
This made Slater the second Australian after Craig Johnston to win an English top-flight title and the first of the Premier League era.
7: Zeljko Kalac to AC Milan (2005)
The giant shot-stopper may have been the Socceroos number two at the time and signing on as the number two to Dida at the San Siro but this was still AC Milan.
They don’t come much bigger in world football and this was at a time when they were still challenging for European Cups — and winning them in 2007 while Kalac was there — with the likes of Maldini, Kaka and Shevchenko in the squad.
6: Ned Zelic to Borussia Dortmund (1992)
There was no bigger talking point in Australian football in 1992 than the next move of the wunderkind who had dazzled in the NSL and almost single-handedly sent the Olyroos to the Barcelona Olympics.
It would be to Borussia Dortmund for Ned Zelic, who was joining a club so grand they would go on to play in the UEFA Cup Final in his first season in Germany and win the Bundesliga title just two seasons later.
5: Craig Johnston to Liverpool (1981)
Johnston wasn’t a massive name in English football when Bob Paisley chose to bring him to Anfield from Middlesbrough but he still cost 650,000 pounds. That’s roughly $2.5 million with inflation today — then equate that into English football transfer terms and it’s probably around the $12 million mark.
But what put the move at number five on the list is simply the size of Liverpool. They’d won four of the last five English titles when Johnston joined and were the reigning European champions. That says it all.
4: Mark Viduka to Leeds (2000)
To be honest, you could have chosen the move to Celtic 18 months earlier for the V-Bomber as well, such was his status in the game but, by the time he switched over to the Premier League, he was not only Australia’s most valuable player but one of the hottest striking talents in world football.
Viduka had netted 30 times in just 37 games in Scotland. Leeds may not have quite been the team they would become when he joined but the addition of big Dukes certainly got them there as they went on to make the Champions League semi-finals in his first season at the club.
He cost them 6 million pounds. In today’s football currency it’s probably worth around $40 million at least and proved a bargain.
3: Paul Okon to Lazio (1996)
The final three on this list all fit the criteria to its maximum — an Australian player at the peak of their powers joining a massive club.
The Paul Okon — Lazio move is arguably the most under-rated in the Australian game. Like Zelic at a similar time, Okon was a gem of the Australian game, moving from the NSL to Club Brugge, where he would win a league title, cup and player of the year honours for the entire league in 1996.
That summer, Lazio prised him away from some other giants of world football and took him to Italy, where he would join the likes of Alessandro Nesta, Pavel Nedved and Pepe Signori and finish fourth in the league that season.
With the likes of Christian Vieri, Marcelo Salas and Sinisa Mihajlovic signing soon after, the size of Lazio at the time is pretty clear.
2: Harry Kewell to Liverpool (2003)
Harry’s move from Leeds was so big it was kept quiet and only revealed in a special interview on A Current Affair with Ray Martin. Legit.
Ahh, the days before social media. Liverpool were always the hot tip as Harry’s destination but you literally had to gather around the TV that night just to be sure he hadn’t made a backflip and joined Man United, Chelsea or Juventus, who had all put bids in.
That was the status of Harry then, a Ballon D’Or nominee and PFA Young Player of the year winner — an award won by Ronaldo, Owen, Beckham, Rooney, Gerrard, Giggs and many other luminaries.
Had Liverpool been in a stronger position it may have even been the number one deal ever but he was still joining an enormous club.
1: Mark Bosnich to Manchester United (1999)
The reigning European champions and five-time league winners in the 90s were after a goalkeeping replacement for Peter Schmeichel. In business terms, it’s like trying to find the new CEO of Apple.
And Sir Alex Ferguson went for an Aussie. Well, that’s not going to be beat. Bozza had come off seven seasons at Aston Villa, where he had elevated his status to arguably the best player at the club, one of the best goalkeepers in the world and certainly the most electrifying in the Premier League.
It may have been the second time Bosnich joined United after first signing as a 17-year-old in 1989, but the move 10 years later was undoubtedly the biggest Australian football has ever seen.
Listen and subscribe to the ABC Grandstand Football Podcast for many other discussions on the Australian game.
