This time last year Karren Brady announced that West Ham had begun an investigation into the reported £8.3 million transfer of Savio Nsereko from Brescia in January 2009.
One year on to the week we are still none the wiser.
Savio made just one Premier League start during a seven-month spell at West Ham “The deal is something I’m investigating," Brady said in her Diary column in the Sun in November 2012. “Just before this board took over, the club paid a huge amount to Brescia for the German Under-21 who took part in a handful of matches and then departed for Fiorentina at a fraction of the price.”
Savio was once hailed “the talent of the century” in German football circles, when Savio Nsereko won the 2008 European Youth Championship under coach Horst Hrubesch.
He was sold to Fiorentina for a reduced fee of £3m according the Telegraph, with Manuel da Costa going the other way as part of the deal. West Ham retained the rights to 50 percent of the player’s sell-on fee. Manuel Da Costa who later had personal problems of his own was sold by West Ham for 1.5 million Euros.
Savio never broke into Fiorentina’s first team and in January 2010 was loaned out to Bologna
In July 2010, he was sent back to Germany, joining 1860 München on a season loan; the loan agreement was however cancelled in October, after the player was reported missing for a week before being found at his sister’s place.
He was later loaned to Juve Stabia but after only one game with the club, Savio was reported missing once again in September 2011. Fears have grew over the whereabouts after he was officially reported missing in Italy. Interpol joined the search to find the Ugandan-born German. The then 22-year-old hadn’t been seen since texting his manager to say he wouldn’t be at training for ‘personal reasons’
This led his club to ask for an unilateral rescission of the contract. He was successively found in London.
Savio then moved SpVgg Unterhaching of the third division in Germany in September 2012 for an undisclosed fee. In an interview on the club’s website, Nsereko cited his desire to play in his home town of Munich as one of the motivating factors for his move. He was released by Unterhaching after three months with the club.
In 2012 it is claimed he called his family from Thailand telling them he had been abducted and demanding a sum of 3,000 euros (£2,400). However, police arrested him after becoming suspicious at the small ransom demand. He later claimed it was a misunderstanding.
Earlier this year he was back in the headlines for the wrong reasons. According to German website Bild.de he stole a watch from his own team-mate, Salvatore Amirante, who was recovering from a knee injury while playing in the German regional leagues with FC Viktoria Koln.
In July this year he completed a free transfer move to an obscure Israeli side called Hapoel Ironi Akko. Last season they finished bottom of the Israeli Premier League table but survived by two points in the Bottom Half Play off.
This year he was quoted as saying: “I made a lot of mistakes. In fact, I did everything wrong that I could. I was handed a million Euro in cash thanks to the move and earned 65’000 Euro (more than £50,000) a month at West Ham. I lost grip with reality completely.”
It is claimed for two of his birthdays, he flew himself and female friends of his to Miami. In a private jet costing 160,000 Euros. “Nobody ever told me how to deal with that amount of money” he said.
When Gianfranco Zola and Gianluca Nani splurged £8.3 million on 19-year-old German youth international Savio Nsereko in 2009 Scott Duxbury, West Ham;s then CEO said “We are delighted to sign Savio, particularly with the fierce competition for his services across Europe. He is an exciting prospect, who Gianfranco Zola believes will prove a valuable asset for this club now and in the years to come. It is a significant investment and shows our determination to continue moving this club forward.”
Zola, Nani and Duxbury are now all at Watford.
Will we ever know the truth about Savio and any dodgy dealings or is he just a troubled youngster who didn’t fulfil his potential? How much of did West Ham pay and how much did we get back?
I asked West Ham’s press office for an update to the Savio investigation last week but received no update.
