Former Chelsea striker Adrian Mutu was never far away from the headlines during his incident-filled stint at Stamford Bridge.
Back in the summer of 2003, Mutu joined Chelsea from Parma for a fee of £15.2 million.
Mutu was part of a huge spending spree by then-new owner Roman Abramovich, who also brought in the likes of Claude Makelele, Hernan Crespo and Damien Duff.
Under the guidance of Claudio Ranieri, Mutu was in fine form as he ended up being nominated for the 2003 Ballon d’Or award.
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However, his Chelsea career started to turn sour after the arrival of Jose Mourinho in 2004.
As per talkSPORT, Mourinho approached Mutu and his team with accusations of drug use during his first training session in pre-season. But the drug test came back negative.
Mutu later claimed that he and Mourinho were involved in a huge argument over his attitude and publicly accused the Portuguese of lying about his fitness.
The Romanian stated that he nearly hit Mourinho during the row, which ended up in a £120,000 fine for Mutu.
In October 2004, Mutu tested positive for cocaine.
Explaining his positive test, Mutu said: “The only reason I took what I took was because I wanted to improve my sexual performance.
“It may be funny but it’s true. I did not take cocaine. I took something to make me feel good.”
Mutu was immediately banned from football for seven months.
The striker then made further headlines in 2004 after he was captured sucking the blood of porn star Laura Anderson.
Chelsea then decided to sack Mutu for breach of contract and the Romanian was ordered to pay the club £15.2 million in damages by FIFA.
Mutu appealed the decision by it was rejected by the European Court of Human Rights in 2018.
Having ended his career with 200 goals, Mutu is now bidding for a career in management.
Speaking to the BBC in 2020, he said: “I've passed through hard moments and I came back stronger. If one of my players happens to make a mistake I will tell them to learn from it and not to repeat it.
“My ambitions as a coach cannot be lower than the ones I had as a footballer.
“I always wanted to be better and better. I want to get to coach at least at the same level I played at, and my dream is to be the head coach of the Romanian national team.”
Topics: Chelsea, Premier League, Jose Mourinho
Marcus Chan