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A right-wing role for Tomasz Frankowski – Wolves' Where Are They Now?

Glenn Hoddle said he was the missing piece of the jigsaw upon his arrival at Wolves – but Polish striker Tomasz Frankowski kept missing the target.

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Sixteen appearances and zero goals, Frankowski is firmly considered a flop by the Molineux faithful.

But the 45-year-old is now doing pretty well for himself outside of football.

He has turned his hand to politics, and he is a member of Polish centre-right party Civic Platform, founded by Donald Tusk – the nation’s Prime Minister from 2007 to 2014.

Earlier this year, Frankowski became a Member of European Parliament too.

He is clearly doing something right. And his playing career, barring his spell in gold and black, was largely successful too.

Frankowski scored a very impressive 168 goals in 302 Polish Ekstraklasa games, making him the league’s third-highest scorer of all time.

So, it does make you wonder why it went so horribly at Wolves.

“His scoring record is phenomenal,” said Hoddle, when Frankowski was snapped up in January 2006, after 115 goals in 173 games over seven years for Wisla Krakow and eight in 13 for Spanish club Elche.

“He’s a clinical finisher who we see as the last part of the jigsaw in the penalty box.”

Chief executive Jez Moxey spoke about the great difficulty involved in getting the deal done as well, for £1.4million.

“Let’s just say that this deal has proved particularly tortuous,” said Moxey.

“For starters, Elche weren’t keen to sell him, having only bought him from Wisla Krakow in the summer. In fact, their club president was so annoyed by the decision that he resigned.

“What made it so hard was people simply not being straight with us. And it seemed to change from one day to the next as to who exactly we were dealing with.”

Wolves, of course, hoped all that hard work to land Frankowski’s signature would pay dividends – and recoup the goals lost by Kenny Miller’s departure at the start of the season.

But what they got what as a barren run which earned him the nickname ‘the Pole without a goal’, as well as costing him a place in Poland’s 2006 World Cup squad.

Then came a loan move to Tenerife, which he wanted to make permanent.

“At the moment I am a Wolverhampton player, but I would like to come here,” said Frankowski.

“I have not spoken with anybody at either club on this subject yet but that is my hope.

“My dream is to play well with Tenerife. I’m still a Wolverhampton player at the moment, but if they do not want me I will speak with the president of the Tenerife. I would sign a new contract on less money at Tenerife if necessary.”

Tenerife were not impressed enough, though, and Frankowski eventually saw his Wolves contract terminated in August 2007. He did enjoy a fun final few years of playing, at hometown club Jagiellonia Bialystok, scoring 52 times in 120 games before retiring six years ago.

And Frankowski became an MEP in the spring of this year – serving the Podlaskie and Warmian-Masurian constituency – and last month opened an office in the Polish city of Lomza.

“I think we will work together for the next five years and I would like to be an active MEP,” he said.

“As a member of the culture and education committee, I want to cooperate with local governments, but also with associations, academies, with the sports and amateur community, as well as programmes financed by the European Parliament, the Union to attract and raise funds here.”

Frankowski is a busy man, and he added: “Work in Brussels is quite intensive and in theory from Monday to Thursday I will always be in Brussels, while Fridays will be the day of the week where I will want to visit not only the office in Lomza, but also the office in Olsztyn or Bialystok.”

Quite the story. Ultimately, Frankowski has done a lot better in politics than he did at Wolves.