Leeds United won't forget transfer shocker which cost them £13,715 per second | OneFootball

FLW look at all the financial details regarding Jean-Kevin Augustin's disastrous Leeds United transfer saga.

Leeds United's ill-fated signing of Jean-Kevin Augustin is undoubtedly one of football’s most disastrous deals, with financial and reputational repercussions still felt years later. The saga is a cautionary tale of how quickly ambition can turn into calamity.

The deal initially appeared straightforward. Leeds, chasing promotion in the 2019/20 season, brought Augustin in on loan from RB Leipzig with an obligation to buy him should they secure promotion. The striker’s pedigree, having played for Paris Saint-Germain and Leipzig, seemed promising at the time.

Leeds had Eddie Nketiah for the first half of the campaign, with the young striker on loan from Arsenal notching some important goals during his time in West Yorkshire, but he was unable to displace Patrick Bamford in Bielsa's team. Bamford was the starting striker due to his energy and intensity, which made him the best stylistic and structural fit, and Nketiah could not replicate the same qualities as a focal point.

It was hoped Augustin could provide competition as a more like-for-like profile to Bamford in frame, size, and style. However, things unravelled almost immediately for him and for Leeds, which left Bamford as the only fit and available striker for much of the run-in that season.

Jean-Kevin Augustin's Leeds problems

Augustin's fitness was a glaring issue early on, with the forward making just three appearances, totalling only 48 minutes of football. Injuries and a lack of sharpness left Bielsa unconvinced, and Augustin was barely seen during the final stages of the season.

In spite of that, Leeds secured promotion but refused to honour the £18 million buy clause, arguing the COVID-delayed season voided the agreement, which was valid until June of that year. The persistent fitness issues forced both Bielsa and Leeds’ hierarchy to turn their back on the forward, though they initially argued about "extenuating circumstances" due to the pandemic.

The fee Victor Orta and co. agreed which Leeds paid initially was £1.7 million on loan, with another £17.7 million following promotion, but the legal fallout with CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport) was catastrophic for Leeds in the end after they tried and failed to exploit what they thought was a potential loophole.

They settled on £15.5 million deal with Leipzig instead after they ruled in Leipzig’s favour, and appeals proved fruitless and were costly in court fees and legal costs. To make matters worse, Leeds eventually were ordered by FIFA's Dispute Resolution Chamber to pay a reported £24.5 million to their former player in unpaid wages after being found to have breached his contract.

That was mostly to cover Augustin’s wages, which were rumoured to be around €90,000 a week (circa. £75,000) during his brief stint, as well as the damages to the player. The financial burden spiralled and has been an issue for Leeds for many seasons since 2020/21 when the legal dispute initially began.

To make matters worse, Leeds suffered reputational damage in the footballing world. Their handling of the situation painted them as uncooperative, and the prolonged dispute became a distraction for the club. Ultimately, Leeds paid around £25 million to a player for less than an hour of football who failed to make any meaningful impact in a footballing sense, and a hefty impact in a financial sense.

The total cost of Jean-Kevin Augustin's legal dispute with Leeds

According to Metro, Augustin ended up costing Leeds £13,715 per second between his wages and transfer fee. The actual cost of the deal is likely to be even more than that when factoring in everything else.

The true figure may never be known exactly, but for the Augustin and Leipzig side of the deal alone, Leeds have paid around £40 million. That figure doesn't include interest and other legal costs, such as lawyers and solicitors, disbursements, and other expert fees and court charges.

This figure also doesn’t even account for the opportunity cost of signing a more reliable striker during that critical promotion push. Leeds played the Frenchman on three occasions but with a view to using him in the top-flight, which they never did.

It is a blot on an otherwise positive period in the club's history, having gained promotion back to the Premier League after 16 years of exile in 2020, all while playing an exciting and attractive brand of football under the stewardship of one of the club's most popular ever managers.

The Augustin saga stands as a grim reminder of how high-stakes football deals can backfire spectacularly. It is not just one of the worst transfers in Leeds' history but a contender for the most calamitous in football’s modern era, with very few coming even remotely close to costing a club so much for so little in return.

Realistically, it goes down as easily the worst transfer deal in the club's history, and it could be argued that it is pound-for-pound the worst signing by any team in football history as well. It was an incredibly bad piece of business, and it's highly unlikely that Leeds or any other club, for that matter, will ever be able to top it.