I’m Chelsea’s transfer deal-maker – but this 2011 deal was the most bizarre

Having joined Chelsea in July 2002, the club’s director of football operations David Barnard, has seen some things in his time. 

As club secretary, Barnard is one of the Blues’ most important football administrators, bearing responsibility – among other roles – for the signing of new players. 

But amidst over 3,000 players that Barnard has seen arrive at Stamford Bridge and their associated negotiations, one transfer stands out as the most complicated and dangerous deal that Barnard has negotiated during his time at the west London club. 

Speaking to London Is Blue Podcast, the executive shared a story that typified the difficulties that club secretaries had to go to secure the services of their desired transfers in the pre-internet era. 

Citing document-signing programme DocuSign as transformative in making deals possible remotely, Barnard harked back to a day in the not-so-recent past where putting pen to paper in person was the only recourse. 

Then-manager Andre Villas-Boas would only stay at the club eight months after the signing

This was put to the test in 2011, as Barnard raced to secure a new player from Barcelona for then-manager Andre Villas-Boas. 

Barnard reminisced: ‘Negotiations started when I was in Malaysia, then continued when I was in Thailand [on Chelsea’s pre-season tour] – you’ve also got to bear in mind the time difference when things are taking so long.

‘Then we completed the transfer in Hong Kong [where Chelsea were playing in the Premier League Asia Cup].’

The player in question? 19-year-old Oriol Romeu, then impressing in the Catalan club’s B team. 

Barnard flew back to London on Sunday, put all the paperwork in place at Chelsea’s office on Monday, and travelled that day to South America, as the talented teen was playing for Spain in the under-20s World Cup in Colombia. 

Barnard went on: ‘I got to Bogota, and as I got to the hotel, there were two armed guards. 

‘[It wasn’t far but] they carried my bags, escorted me into the hotel. 

‘I went to my room and they asked me if I wanted to come down to the restaurant.’

Instead, Barnard turned on the television. 

‘The first thing I saw on the television was a truckload of bodies on a bridge, and all the bodies were then being thrown into the water. 

‘So the first thing I did was get the chair, put it up against my hotel room, and rather than having a meal, I ended up having all of the M&Ms and everything out of the fridge.’

The morning’s transfer to the airport, which would in turn send Barnard from the Colombian capital to Manizales, the city where Spain were due to play their next match, was no less eye-opening. 

Barnard was provided with armed escorts at his hotel during his stay in Bogota (file photo)

Signing the Spanish teenager (left) for €5million came with a significant number of air miles

The hotel had offered to take him to the airport, but told him: ‘We’ll put you in the back of the car, blacked-out windows, because you’ve got pale skin, and the last thing that happened… whatever traffic lights you were going to stop at – you’d be…’

It was best left unsaid. 

He tracked down Romeu, tangling initially with the president of the Spanish hotel – as the team were based in the same one as Barnard – who didn’t want the executive to disrupt him, and eventually the player was able to sign on the dotted line. 

Barnard returned to Bogota, then Madrid, then London, and eventually, after travelling over 20,000 miles, the transfer was completed. 

Looking back on the experience, Barnard said that he always got ‘enjoyment from the outcome’ of his far-flung travels. 

‘I was the guy that had to go anywhere, in those days.’

Romeu didn’t see personal success with Chelsea during his two years in west London

But the player found his footing at Southampton and played for the Saints for seven years 

He also revealed that he had made a friend on the trip, his escort-cum-bodyguard, who he later stayed in touch with and invited to Chelsea to say thank you. 

Barnard said of the Spanish international who played a starring role in his ‘longest transfer’ that it was a shame that he didn’t make it at Chelsea. 

Romeu failed to make his mark at Stamford Bridge, and was sent on loan to Valencia, and then Stuttgart, only two years after Barnard’s globetrotting deal was pulled off. 

But Barnard remembers the player warmly, and described the midfielder, who went on to shine at Southampton, as a ‘lovely fella’.