PER KRøLDRUP

'Per Billeskov Krøldrup' (born July 31, 1979) is a Danish professional football player who plays as a central defender for Italian club ACF Fiorentina in the Serie A championship. Krøldrup has represented the Denmark national football team in more than 10 matches, and he was part of the Danish roster for the 2004 European Championship.

Contents

Biography

References

External links

Biography

Born in Farsø, Krøldrup started his footballing career at Danish lower league club Aalborg Chang. He went on to play for B 93 Copenhagen in the secondary Danish 1st Division before transferring to Udinese in the Italian top-flight Serie A championship in 2001. At Udinese, he played alongside Danish national team player Martin Jørgensen, who, since March 2002,^[1] claimed that Krøldrup was ready for the Danish national team. In February 2004, Krøldrup was called up for his national team debut against Turkey. He was a part of the Danish squad for the 2004 European Championship, though he did not play any games at the tournament
After four successful years in Italy, he moved to the English Premiership club Everton F.C. for a transfer fee of 5 million pounds in 2005.^[2] Everton manager David Moyes praised Krøldrup as being "young, enthusiastic and keen to improve", but he also pointed out that "[Krøldrup] is a bit more of a risk because he is an unknown in terms of playing in the Premiership". The transfer took place in late June 2005, but after impressing in pre-season a training injury prevented Krøldrup from making an early debut for the team. When he recovered from his injury, Krøldrup spent a long time sitting on the bench as an unused substitute. This is rumoured to have been due to a clause entitling Udinese to further payments once Krøldrup hit a fixed number of games or because he was scared of heading a football.^[3] In January 2006, following half a year at the club, Krøldrup moved back to Italy where he signed for ACF Fiorentina, having played a total of just two competitive games for Everton.
Following the 2006 Serie A scandal, where several clubs were on trial for match fixing, Fiorentina were initially relegated to Serie B in July 2006. Krøldrup was amongst the players wanting to leave. However, as Fiorentina made an appeal to the Italian Football Federation, the club remained in Serie A and most of their players, including Krøldrup, remained with the Florence club.
On July 18th 2007, Krøldrup was named the worst transfer in Premier League by TimesOnline. The list was based on the size of transfer fee and impact made by the player.

References

1. Kurt Lassen, "Thomas Helveg melder afbud til testkamp", ''Berlingske Tidende'', March 19, 2002
2. Scott McLeod, MOYES PRAISE FOR NEW BOYS, ''EvertonFC.com''
3. Per Krøldrup — Defender, ''ToffeeWeb.com'', February 2006

External links

★ Danish national team profile

★ ACF Fiorentina profile