Ricky Alvarez is not a name that Sunderland supporters will remember fondly…
Sunderland made some strange signings and some that just didn’t work out for the club – especially for big money – during their final years in the Premier League.
During those years, the Black Cats were struggling to stay in the top flight of English football and were frequently battling relegation, and some of the recruitment did not help the various managers who sat in the dugout at the Stadium of Light.
One of those was Jack Rodwell, who famously refused to rip up his contract as the Wearsiders began to fall down the divisions and into League One despite his high wage and the fact he wasn’t playing, while Papy Djilobodji and Didier Ndong were also not Sunderland’s best transfer window performers.
However, in the few years leading up to relegation in 2017, one of the strangest deals agreed and completed was that of Ricky Alvarez, an Argentine international who will go down as one of the most forgettable players who caused the club a lot of problems.
What went wrong during Ricky Alvarez’s time at Sunderland?
Attacking midfielder Alvarez shone for Inter Milan in Italy, but he joined Sunderland in the summer of 2014 on loan with the option to buy a year later if they were not relegated from the Premier League.
His brief spell in England, however, was a nightmare, as injury and fitness issues limited the Argentinian to just 17 appearances in all competitions, with only four starts in 13 Premier League appearances.
Unfortunately for Sunderland, the fact that they remained in the Premier League meant that they had to commit to spending £9.2 million on the frequently injured and unfit midfielder – something they tried to avoid due to injury issues that they believed Inter should have paid for.
The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) took two years to reach a decision on the fee, and Sunderland were ordered to pay Inter the fee in the summer of 2017, after being relegated from the Premier League.
Alvarez also went to the CAS to claim for lost earnings while the saga was ongoing in 2015, which saw him unable to play for Sunderland, and he was successful in 2021, resulting in the then-League One Black Cats having to pay the player £4.7 million.
The entire ordeal proved extremely costly for the club, especially since all of the costs came after they had dropped out of the Premier League, and it would almost certainly ensure that Sunderland did not enter into any more obligation to buy agreements with loanees.
What happened to Ricky Alvarez after he left Sunderland?
With Alvarez still embroiled in a legal battle in the second half of 2015, he was granted permission to return to Italy and sign on a permanent basis for Sampdoria in January 2016 while his Sunderland transfer was contested in court.
Alvarez had an underwhelming time there, and in 2018 he moved to Mexico to play for Atlas, but a cruciate knee ligament injury just a few months into his time there effectively ended his chances.
And in 2020, Alvarez returned to his first club, Velez Sarsfield, in his home country of Argentina, where he played until the end of the 2021 season, but he retired from the game at the start of 2022 at the age of 33, possibly due to knee injuries.
While he may have displayed more on the pitch than Rodwell Sunderland, Alvarez was a costly failure for the Black Cats, and a lot of money went down the drain on him at a time when they simply could not afford to waste a penny.
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