Premier League flop signs contract worth less than £1 to return to boyhood club
Former Blackburn Rovers striker Nikola Kalinic has re-signed for boyhood club Hajduk Split in a deal worth less than £1.
For just one euro, the equivalent of just 86p, former Croatia international Kalinic will spend the next five months back with the HNL table toppers, who are on course to win their first Croatian title since 2005. Kalinic - who earned a runners-up medal with Croatia at the 2018 World Cup, despite infamously being sent home early - spent two years at Blackburn completing a £6million transfer from Split and signing a four-year contract in August 2009.
Across 53 appearances for Rovers, however, the striker only bagged 13 goals and was shipped out to Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in 2011. Four years with the now dissolved Ukranian club saw him rekindle his career and earn a move back to one of Europe's top five divisions, as he signed for Serie A side Fiorentina.
Kalinic impressed in the Italian top flight so much that he went on to play for AC Milan and Roma, as well as Spanish giants Atletico Madrid. After leaving Hellas Verona in 2022, he returned to Split for a 16-month spell which ended in June of last year.
Now the 35-year-old is back at the Stadion Poljud, putting pen to paper on a cheap deal. Split's sporting director, Mindaugas Nikolicius, explained after Kalinic's return was announced on Wednesday: "This was easiest deal in my 3 years at Hajduk - it's a 1 euro salary.
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"Nikola returns with one aim: help Hajduk to win the title after 19 years." Nikolicius went on to say: "We all know what kind of situation he was in, we need to give him some time and see what form he will be in."
Kalinic will reclaim the No.9 shirt after new team-mate Aleksandar Trajkovski voluntarily gave it up and took No.27, the club added. Money has never been a priority for Kalinic, as he even turned down a lucrative move to Chinese Super League club Tianjin Quanjian which would've seen him earn a reported 50million euros in 2017.
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"There was huge pressure to sell me, I felt everyone was pushing me to China," he revealed to Croatian outlet Sportske novosti. "Not the club but the press and people, the atmosphere was created that I should go - they wanted to get rid of me. I never said I would love to go.
"Of course I considered it when I saw the offer, but not once did I say I would like to go! I don't know how much Tianjin offered to Fiorentina, I got an offer for me and decided to stay. This is my final decision!"
He's expected to fare better back in Croatia than during his troubled stint with Blackburn. Rovers fans will recall his two-goal brace against West Ham before he was sent off for a high tackle on Paul Scharner, leaving Kalinic to serve a three-game suspension to mark one of his money lows at Ewood Park.
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