No-one could blame Manchester City if they came dangling a receipt for a former Champions League winner.
After a disappointing 2005/06 campaign in which they finished 15th in the Premier League, City were in need of some reinforcements to avoid a similarly poor placing.
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Sharpening City’s need for new signings was the fact they finished eighth the season before, so a continued decline was less than ideal.
Stuart Pearce, who was City boss at the time, largely opted for players with experience in the summer of 2006.
Paul Dickov was brought back for a second stint at the club, midfielder Ousmane Dabo joined from Lazio while former Italian international Bernardo Corradi arrived from Valencia.
A baby-faced Joe Hart was also on the transfer agenda, signed for an estimated £756,000 from Shrewsbury Town.
However, none of City’s summer signings quite had the same pedigree of Dietmar ‘Didi’ Hamann.
Hamann had two Bundesliga titles, two FA Cups and a Champions League trophy to his name when City came calling.
After he played a heroic role in helping Liverpool famously beat AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final – converting a penalty in the shootout with a broken foot – Hamann featured just 17 times in the league for the Reds across the 05/06 season.
It was his lowest tally of league appearances for Liverpool since he joined in 1999.
Facing the prospect of his game time being further reduced, Hamann decided a move from Anfield was best for his career.
A host of clubs were interested in his services, but it was Bolton Wanderers, managed by Sam Allardyce, who won the race.
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Hamann signed a pre-contract agreement to join Bolton from Liverpool, marking his third stint at a Premier League club following a season with Newcastle.
But less than 24 hours later, Hamann was holding up a City jersey alongside Pearce after the midfielder got cold feet.
City ultimately forked out £400,000 for the German.
However, it’s a six-figure fee City should never have had to pay in the first place.
Phil Gartside, who was Bolton’s chairman at the time, revealed to talkSPORT in 2013 how he managed to pull the wool over City’s eyes and laugh all the way to the bank.
It just so happened to be the first time Hamann, who was in the talkSPORT studio alongside Gartside, had heard the story.
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“What happened was Didi signed for us (Bolton) on a free transfer from Liverpool, came in, signed the papers, and then, for whatever reason, decided it wasn’t for you and that you wanted to reconsider,” Gartside said.
“We said to you (Hamann), ‘I’m sorry about that, but you’ve signed.’ But what you never realised was that we never actually countersigned the papers and just put them in the drawer.
“The next thing we know, you came along and told us you’d got this opportunity to go to Manchester City – so we actually sold you without signing you, did you know that?
“We got £400,000 from Manchester City for a player we never actually signed. And that’s the truth.”
Hamann was understandably surprised at the revelation and said: “I didn’t know that, we might need to get in touch with City.”
The 59-time German international ultimately played 71 times in all competitions for City before he was released at the end of his contract in July 2009.
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During Hamann’s three seasons at the club, City’s best finish was ninth.
Had Hamann opted to stick to his agreement with Bolton, he would’ve enjoyed a seventh-placed finish in the 06/07 campaign.
But that was the last high point for the team as they slowly slid down the league until their eventual relegation to the Championship in 2012.
Bolton continued to spiral out of control and slipped as far down as League Two in 2020.
However, the Trotters have since stabilised in League One and finished in the play-off positions for two successive seasons.
Perhaps the tailspin could have been slightly delayed had Hamann ended up at the Reebok Stadium instead of Manchester.
