Diego Maradona's nearly transfer to Sheffield Utd - botched by a military bung

A year ago today the footballing world lost one of its most talented and colourful characters.

Diego Armando Maradona passed away on November 25, 2020 at the age of 60. The 1986 World Cup winner, who died after suffering a heart attack, was widely considered as one of the greatest players of all time.

His list of clubs included Barcelona, Boca Juniors and Napoli. But had things turned out differently then the Argentine maestro could well have been strutting his stuff for Sheffield United.

Back in 1978 Maradona was making quite the reputation for himself at Argentinos Juniors.

He was just 17-years-old but was attracting plenty of attention from scouts.

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United, then a second division side, were under the stewardship of Harry Haslam.

He had arranged a scouting trip to Argentina, a country who were basking in their first-ever World Cup win earlier that summer. Also on the trip was Spurs manager Keith Burkinshaw and his travelling party.

The premise was for United to arrange a deal for the duo of Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa. But they passed up the opportunity and Spurs duly moved in to complete the deal instead.

With the trip looking like a pointless exercise, United were then brought to the attentions of a certain 17-year-old who had been catching the eye.

Haslam was said to be mesmerised by him and straight away enquired as to how much it would cost to purchase him.

A fee of £150,000 was agreed but that's where negotiations started to turn murky.

United's club historian John Garrett details the exact circumstances as to why a deal never materialised.

Speaking to Yorkshire Live last year, before Maradona's death, he said: "At the time, Argentina was run by the military junta, a right-wing coup that overthrew the then president.

That night, Haslam's in his room relaxing thinking he's got this wonder kid and then gets a knock at the door from a member of the military police who has turned up at the hotel.

"He's saying that he has heard we're paying £150,000 for this player and if United want the military to let Diego out of the country, they would like a payment of £150,000 too.

"So not only have you got a figure of £300,000, which I would imagine is getting towards a fair amount of cash for an untried 17-year-old, but the main problem was that it was starting to get a bit political."

Garrett claims that United then "ran a mile" once the deal became embroiled in politics and that was the end of that.

United instead signed Maradona's compatriot Alex Sabella. The midfielder would remain at Bramall Lane for two years and made himself a key part of the team before being sold to Leeds in 1980.

As for Maradona, he would enjoy unparalleled success with the pinnacle coming in 1986 when he captained Argentina to World Cup glory.

In a strange quirk of fate, Sabella would tragically pass away barely a fortnight after Maradona, in December 2020.

A year on from the latter's death Unitedites even to this day still cannot help but wonder what might have been, had events in 1978 turned out differently.