Leeds United ended their three-year stay in the Premier League earlier this year as they were relegated from the top-flight under Sam Allardyce.
The experienced English coach arrived in an attempt to save the day but was unable to prevent the relegation after Javi Gracia and Jesse Marsch had left the club in a difficult position.
Whilst the managers can take responsibility for their respective failures, former sporting director Victor Orta should shoulder some of the blame for his work to assemble the playing squad that failed to perform.
Orta’s most-expensive Leeds signings | |
|---|---|
Player | Fee (via Transfermarkt and Sky Sports) |
Georginio Rutter | £35.5m |
Brendan Aaronson | £28.4m |
Rodrigo | £25.9m |
Dan James | £25.1 |
Luis Sinisterra | £21.6m |
As you can see in the table above, the Spaniard was able to splash the cash on several occasions in an attempt to bolster the squad, for Bielsa and Marsch, but rarely had success at Premier League level with those big-money moves.
Rutter and Aaronson – the two most expensive signings of Orta’s time at Elland Road – combined for one goal and four assists in 47 top-flight matches throughout the 2022/23 campaign.
The now-Sevilla chief is not the only Leeds figure to have made mistakes in that department over the years, though, and one famous transfer market blunder was the signing of attacker Tomas Brolin.
The fee Leeds paid for Brolin
Back in November of 1995, the Whites agreed a club-record deal to sign the Sweden international from Italian side Parma for a reported fee of £4.5m.
It was claimed that the club paid £600k upfront for the talented forward and the remaining £3.9m was due to be paid to the Serie A outfit over the subsequent two-and-a-half-years.
Parma reportedly announced that the deal was off as Brolin had failed to agree personal terms with Leeds but the move eventually went through, and then-managing director Bill Fotherby stated that he was always confident that it would go ahead as planned.
It was a big gamble from the Whites as they decided to smash their club record to sign a player who had only played three matches for his club that season and was coming off the back of recovering from a broken foot the previous year.
Brolin has since revealed that he did not want to leave Parma and that his belief was that the Italian side wanted to cash in on him before his contract expired, as the Bosman ruling was due to come in and they did not want to lose him on a free transfer.
Brolin’s goal record for Parma
The excellent midfielder enjoyed an impressive spell in Italy with the club as he racked up 31 goals in 190 appearances in all competitions, with spells there on either side of his time with Leeds.
He proved himself to be a goalscorer from a midfield position and contributed to a successful period in Parma’s history as they won four trophies during his time there.
The Italian team won the UEFA Supercup, the UEFA Cup, the Europapokal, and the Italian Cup between 1991 and 1995, with Brolin playing a part in their successes.
His best season for goals came during the 1990/91 campaign as the Swedish wizard smashed in seven goals in 33 Serie A outings for Parma.
Brolin’s goal record for Sweden
Brolin also caught the eye on the big stage for his country as the impressive attacker racked up an outstanding 25 goals in 46 caps for Sweden throughout his career.
He burst onto the international scene with a fantastic 1992 European Championship performance as the gem ended the tournament as the top-scorer with three strikes.
Two years later, the attacker enjoyed an excellent World Cup as he managed three goals in six outings as his country reached the semi-finals before their loss to Brazil in the last four.
His exploits for Parma and Sweden seemingly convinced Leeds that he was the right player to smash their club record transfer fee on as they swooped to sign him for £4.5m just over a year on from his World Cup heroics in America.
Brolin’s goal record for Leeds
However, things did not go to plan for Brolin at Elland Road as his big-money switch to England turned out to be a nightmare for everyone involved.
Howard Wilkinson was the Leeds manager at the time and the Sweden international claimed that the head coach promised him a creative midfield role, where he could get on the ball to make things happen in the middle of the park.
This was not to be the case, though, as he was, instead, utilised as a centre-forward or out wide and was never able to play in the position that was promised to him, as per his claim.
Brolin went on to score just four goals in 24 appearances for the Whites in all competitions throughout his time in Yorkshire, which worked out as around £1.1m per goal from his £4.5m transfer fee.
In 1996, the forward had to apologise to Wilkinson after telling Swedish television that he had agreed to join Norrkoping on loan as an April Fool’s interview, which ended up being taken seriously in the English media.
The club eventually opted to release him from his contract in 1997 for a reported £140k to end a dismal spell at Elland Road after his club-record switch from Parma.
What Brolin is up to now
He retired at the age of 28 and ventured into the business sector having met Swedish inventor Goran Edlund in 1997, who had developed a new vacuum cleaner nozzle.
In 2018, The Sun reported that Brolin was a 50% partner in The Twinner and that the brand had become popular in Sweden over the subsequent two decades. By that point, they sold 130,000 products per year and the company was said to be worth ‘millions of pounds’.
The Swedish former professional has, therefore, become a successful owner of a vacuum company, which is not the traditional route that former international players take after their retirement, but it has seemingly worked out well for him.
The Daily Star claimed, earlier this year, that the ex-Leeds flop donates 30% of his earnings from sales of the vacuums to a children’s rights society in Sweden.
He has had success off the field since his retirement, with a thriving business, and it is great to see that his sour spell with Leeds was quickly put behind him, as it was a nightmare move for all involved on the pitch.
