Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United are just a few of the clubs that have enjoyed some of the best Freebies in recent seasons.
Huge names such as Kevin De Bruyne and Luka Modric moved on free transfers in 2025, and emphasize the value that a club can find if they wait for their time.
Football clubs now publish astronomical transfer costs to players, but there are still good value deals to look for. Here is a selection, but certainly not all, of the best free transfers of recent times.
One of the most bizarre transfer decisions took place in 2011 when AC Milan Pirlo allowed itself to join Rivals Juventus.
The legendary Italian midfielder then played 164 games for Juve and won the competition in each of his four seasons in Turin, while Milan, who had just won Serie A, had to wait more than a decade before he won another Scudetto.
Bayern must be difficult in the back for Borussia Dortmund fans. They take their best players year after year and sometimes even have the cheek to do it for free.
It was the stubbornness of Dortmund so that this 2014 free transfer could happen in the first place, but you can't really blame them.
Bayern had picked up Mario last summer, which led to Dortmund refusing to have Lewandowski leave, although he only had a year left on his contract.
Despite the Premier League interest, the Polish attacker chose to join his Bundesliga rivals – as a recurring theme has become.
Eight straight Bundesliga titles, a Champions League, three German cups and a bucket of charge goals suggest that he probably made the right decision.
After leaving the real Zaragoza, Poyet was picked up by Chelsea and became a club legend.
Although the midfielder had a rough first season as a result of injuries, the enigmatic Uruguayan quickly became a Blues favorite in his second season and scored 14 times when Chelsea finished third in 1999.
His record of 49 goals in just 145 performances helped Chelsea to four trophies in the Four Seasons Poyet spent on Stamford Bridge. That is an inspired matters.
Mcallister was already 35 years old when Coventry City released him in 2000. He signed for Liverpool and helped them win the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup during his first season in Anfield.
And his last-minute winner at Goodison will live everywhere for a long time in the memory of Reds. An inspiring player.
A brave man is needed to make the move through North Londs, but that is exactly what Campbell did when he exchanged Tottenham for Arsenal in 2001.
It made him a hate figure among Spurs fans, but two prominent competitions and two FA cups to show for his time at Arsenal, he probably doesn't care.
The former international in England appeared a total of two spells for the Gunners in total and was an integral part of the famous 'Invincibles' side of 03-04.
Read: 11 times that Sol Campbell was the answer from football to David Brent
Milner was seen as a wise Freebie when Liverpool picked him up from Manchester City in 2015, but few expected that he would have just as much impact as he has on Anfield.
He has been consistently good in different positions that we had expected, but he broke the record for most assists in one Champions League campaign in 2017-18 is something we certainly did not do.
But perhaps even more important than his versions on the field is to put the winning mentality he helped in his teammates when Liverpool won everything there is to win.
As Jurgen Klopp said prior to the final of the Champions League 2019: “He can be quite intense because he is demanding, but a real leader. My meetings may not be bad but without Milly in the dressing room for the competition, I don't think it would work.”
Milner even managed to shake his 'boring James Milner' tag as one of the funniest football players on social media.
Read: the best of the boring James Milner – and the times the real one played in
Bayern is said to have been forgiven by most because they did not get everything out of the closet to get a 33-year-old striker to sign a new deal in 2011, but Klose would play five more seasons for Lazio in Series A.
And of course he continued to score goals with a pretty handy speed, with 64 in 170 performances, including five in one competition in 2013.
He finally hung up his boots in 2016 and finished as the highest foreign goal scorer in Lazio of all time.
The Argentinian midfielder could actually appear in this list, because two separate entities that went from Inter to Inter in 2004 and then Leicester City.
Although he has to leave his decision to leave Leicester after a year and therefore have to miss their incredible title profit, he will still go in Foxes Folklore for the enormous role he played in preventing the fall in 2015, achieving their player of the seasonal prize.
However, in 2004 his move to Inter by Real Madrid was undoubtedly. He would make 431 performances for the Nerazzurri during a period of dominance in Italy in which Cambiasso won five competition titles, four Italian cups and a Champions League.
“A sitcom-worthy strange couple that glorious rough drives the traditional notions about how to compete in the Premier League, the couple danced together on their own beautiful incompatible melody, Bolton established in the upper half and takes them to Europe.”
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Signed after he had dropped his contract at Manchester United in 2012, Pogba certainly turned out to be where for your four years in his four years at Juventus, winning four league titles, two Italian cups and two Italian Super Cups.
Juve is said to have paid a small compensation costs to sign the then 19-year-old, but since they sold it back to United for a world record £ 89 million four years later, it was probably worth it.
Pogba settled as one of the best midfielders in the world during his time in Turin, and the financial profit that Juventus made of the image of the Frenchman of the field outside the field undoubtedly makes this one of the greatest free transfers of all time.
Ballack was Germany Captain and had just won his third Bundesliga title in four seasons in Bayern Munich in 2006.
But he chose to become a member of Chelsea, after he had rejected the offer of a new contract and reported rival interest from Manchester United.
He was then 29, but after he was crowned in 2002, 2003 and 2005, the German football player of the year, there was little doubt that he was going to improve a Chelsea team that had just won back-to-back Premier League titles with Frank Lampard, Claude Gerelelele and Michael Essien for competition.
And so proved: Ballack made 46 performances in his first season in Stamford Bridge and 166 in total for four years, left with two FA Cups, the League Cup and, more importantly, the Premier League title to show for his efforts.
The legendary Spanish striker ended with Real Madrid for 18 years to join Schalke to a free transfer in 2010.
Even at the age of 33 he had no problem adapting to a new team and new competition for the first time in his career.
Indeed, Raul scored 40 goals in 98 performances for Schalke, which showed that he could still perform a lot at the highest level, before he closed his career with Al Sadd and then closed New York Cosmos.
Larsson had scored goals at an open alarming pace for Celtic, but it was still somewhat a surprise for many people when Barcelona decided to sign him on the back of an impressive Euro 2004 campaign.
He described the move as “a dream come true”, and although he was never a fixed value and only 19 goals scored in his two seasons in Spain, he made a significant contribution for the club in the Champions League final when he stepped off the bank to set both goals in the 2-1 comeback.