Transfers of elite players have now reached eye-watering sums that simply would've been unimaginable a couple of decades ago, with the valuations of players skyrocketing in the modern era.
Indeed, football has come a long way since the first-ever footballer to be transferred happened in 1893, when Scottish striker Willie Groves moved from West Bromwich Albion to Aston Villa for £100: now, clubs are required to pay around one million times more than Groves' ground-breaking deal, with the same old clubs continuing to crop up time and time again.
So who are the top 20? You can see the full list of the 100 most expensive transfers in football here, but for now, let's delve into the select elite and how successful they were…
The top 20 most expensive transfers ever: 20. Cristiano Ronaldo: £83m (Manchester United to Real Madrid, 2009)
A fitting transfer to kick off the list, Cristiano Ronaldo's record-breaking move to Real Madrid was a cultural landmark that took CR7's brand to stratospheric new levels, deepening the rivalry with Lionel Messi and reinvigorating El Clasico to become the biggest fixture on Earth.
The £83m was wild, eclipsing Kaka's record transfer, set earlier that window and marking the fourth time in a row that Los Blancos had smashed the record – but with 450 goals in 438 games, Ronaldo delivered a stunning return on Florentino Perez's investment… and they even made a profit on him (more on that later).
19. Gareth Bale: £85m (Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid, 2013)
The guy that broke Ronaldo's record four years after – though it was reported that Real Madrid specifically kept the number quiet as not to upset their egotistical superstar – Gareth Bale completed the club's superstar BBC frontline and became the most expensive British player of all time when he moved to Spain.
Ask Madridistas and they may well tell you of a stroppy Welshman who refused to integrate and had to be bombed out of the club – but the history books will forever remember Bale's helping hand in two Champions League finals, winning another three, along with over 100 goals in 250 appearances. He was a hit.
18. Paul Pogba: £85m (Juventus to Manchester United, 2016)
Breaking Bale's record three years later, Paul Pogba was a serious statement of intent from a Manchester United side who had failed to qualify for the Champions League, as they spent a premium on their own academy graduate to arm new manager, Jose Mourinho.
The transfer would become symbolic of the club post-Sir Alex – for all the wrong reasons. There's a case that Pogba was never surrounded by players of a high enough calibre to get the best out of him, but after a frustrating six years back in Manchester, he returned to Juventus on a free transfer, for a second time.
This time, no one would be breaking a transfer record for him.
17. Kai Havertz: £89m (Bayer Leverkusen to Chelsea, 2020)
Chelsea beat the best of Europe to bring Kai Havertz to West London – and though fans won't speak about the German with very much affection at all these days (moving to Arsenal will do that), it's hard to argue this one as anything other than a success.
Havertz scored the goal that won the Blues their second Champions League, was a decent attacker at a time when they had precious few, and then they recouped a big fee on him when they moved him on. Given the state of some of the deals on this list, that's fine enough for us.
16. Romelu Lukaku: £97m (Inter Milan to Chelsea, 2021)
From Havertz to Romelu Lukaku, the man who was supposed to offer a bigger presence in attack and take the Champions League winners into a bold new era.
He did, but not like that. Lukaku became the first of several unshiftable liabilities, after giving a fiery interview about how he was being misused by Thomas Tuchel and that he wanted to return to Inter Milan. Two more loans followed, in which he actually burned bridges with Inter fans, before he was flogged to Napoli at cut-price.
Since moving to Manchester United, the Belgian has been horrifically misprofiled by almost every manager he's had, minus Antonio Conte – but Chelsea were expecting more for smashing their transfer record, and he goes down as the last great misstep of the Roman Abramovich era.
15. Moises Caicedo: £100m (Brighton and Hove Albion to Chelsea, 2023)
A third Chelsea buy in a row and we're happy to report that this one is a lot more positive than the last.
The Blues have flitted the cash around like it's going out of fashion since being taken over by the BlueCo group in 2022 – and not all of it has been spent wisely. Moises Caicedo might never be worth nine figures as a footballer but as a mature head among the wonderkids and experiments, he's been worth his weight in gold since he rejected Liverpool for a move to Stamford Bridge.
14. Jack Grealish: £100m (Aston Villa to Manchester City, 2021)
He had an electric season with Aston Villa in 2021 before going to the Euros, where he reached, if not ‘national treasure’ status, then at least ‘regional trinket’ – so Manchester City triggered his ungodly release clause and shifted their ideas a little.
Pep Guardiola had been cautious of maverick attackers since the days of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but his increasingly poor record in Europe forced him to bring true game-changers like Grealish and Erling Haaland. It worked, with City winning the Treble in Grealish's second season – but he never did jump to that next level.
Grealish felt restricted by Guardiola's system, functioning more as a recycler of possession than the spark of genius that he was in the Midlands. While he wasn't bad per se, the numbers simply didn't stack up for the price spent on him, with Everton capitalising on a loan move. Did he flop? Not quite. Was he worth the money? Also, no.
13. Declan Rice: £101m (West Ham United to Arsenal, 2023)
Gooners may tell you that those two free-kicks against Real Madrid were worth the fee alone – and who would we be to argue with that?
Declan Rice turning down the Etihad for the Emirates marked the moment that Mikel Arteta's Arsenal truly arrived as a project, and in his first two seasons, he's transformed the midfield en route to 89 points in the league, before dragging the club to only their third European semi.
Still just 26, much more is expected – but the former West Ham United man has been worth the hype thus far.
12. Enzo Fernandez: £103m (Benfica to Chelsea, 2023)
Clearly, no one told Todd Boehly not to buy a footballer based on an international tournament, with the Chelsea owner so enamoured with Enzo Fernandez's exploits in Qatar, that he jumped through Benfica's frankly extortionate hoops, just mere months after the Lisbon outfit had paid a pittance to bring him to Europe.
That's not to say that Enzo Fernandez has been bad – but certainly not worth over £100m. Flashes of brilliance have been as frequent as the games that have passed him by, while there's certainly a case that the Blues would look better without him. Benfica couldn't believe their luck, put it that way.
11. Cristiano Ronaldo: £103.5m (Real Madrid to Juventus, 2018)
Cristiano Ronaldo brought the Champions League back to European heavyweights Real Madrid after a bit of a wait, simply through his legendary mentality. Juventus signed him to do the same thing.
As is often the case in the Portuguese's career, the numbers stack up extremely well, with 101 goals in 134 games. But while he was expected to elevate the Old Lady to former heights, he in fact presided over the beginning of the end of their dominance, as their long-running grip over Serie A loosened and a well-oiled machine became clogged with a superstar in the engine.
Champions League exits to Porto, Lyon and Ajax punctuated just how misguided a signing this really was – and perhaps showed just how brilliantly Zinedine Zidane had platformed the ageing superstar.
10. Antoine Griezmann: £105m (Atletico Madrid to Barcelona, 2019)
Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have both lifted La Liga titles in the past decade, but the fact that Antoine Griezmann was never there to win the championship with either demonstrates the misfortune of this move.
Barça had no real need for the World Cup winner but signed him anyway, exacerbating their crippling financial problems and forcing manager Quique Setien to play a front two, before he was sacked for that 8-2 drubbing against Bayern Munich.
Griezmann returned on loan to the capital before re-joining permanently for a fraction of what it cost Barcelona to buy him. And surprise, surprise, he wasn't past it after all, regaining form pretty quickly under Diego Simeone.
9. Eden Hazard: £105m (Chelsea to Real Madrid, 2019)
Eden Hazard is the last true Galactico: a transfer for the most exciting superstar in the world at his peak to defy logic, economics and perhaps even tactics.
Hazard, however, could not defy Father Time, struggling with injuries at Valdebebas and featuring just 76 times for Real Madrid in four years, delivering seven goals and confining a transfer strategy to the history books. Ever since, Real have either looked to sign players this good for free, or pay the big bucks for youngsters before they're unsellable.
8. Florian Wirtz: £108m (Bayer Leverkusen to Liverpool, 2025)
Florian Wirtz was linked with absolutely everyone when he led Bayer Leverkusen to an unbeaten Double – and it's fair to say that few imagined it would be Liverpool who would win the race, with the Reds steaming in fairly late to complete a deal.
It's far too soon to judge whether or not the German will live up to the hype but it's an understandable player to smash your transfer record for, at least: the Reds replaced Trent Alexander-Arnold's vision and drive with something completely different and are arguably the envy of Europe for having snared this lad.
7. Jude Bellingham: £110m (Borussia Dortmund to Real Madrid, 2023)
Crazily, winning one Champions League title simply isn't enough to be quantified as a success at Real Madrid – but doing it in your first season is a pretty good way to start.
Jude Bellingham is a generational footballer able to adapt to whatever situation he's thrown in, as evidenced by becoming Los Blancos' talismanic goal-getter en route to their 2024 Champions League title. Unless things go badly wrong, he's primed to pay back every pound of his fee to Florentino Perez: one to file in ‘very good’.
6. Joao Felix: £111m (Benfica to Atletico Madrid, 2019)
Some clubs look to spread the windfall around a team – yet when Antoine Griezmann left for Barcelona, Atletico took the fee and dumped it on exactly the same profile, just a few years younger.
Joao Felix turned out to be everything Griezmann wasn't. In four seasons, he never struck over 10 games in all competitions – dreadful numbers for a transfer of this magnitude – before a loan to Chelsea, then to Barcelona to, err, replace Griezmann.
Atleti fans hated him by the end: failed stints at Chelsea (again, permanently this time) and Milan (on loan, thankfully) have shown that perhaps he was never worth the £111m Atletico originally spent.
5. Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool to Barcelona, £118m, 2018)
In Barcelona's ever-spiralling breakdown after losing Neymar, they turned to Liverpool's Philippe Coutinho, only to be knocked back. They should've listened.
Instead, the Blaugrana came back again in January with a record bid for a Premier League departure. Liverpool spent that on Virgil van Dijk and Alisson to establish themselves as one of the best teams in the world: Barça were stuck with a huge-money flop whose most significant contribution for the club came against them on loan, scoring in the 8-2 humiliation to Bayern.
Coutinho left on loan to Aston Villa, then joined permanently, where even they struggled to offload him.
4. Alexander Isak: £125m (Newcastle United to Liverpool, 2025)
It was previously thought that if a player had three or more years left on their contract, they were unsellable even at the right price. We used to believe that just because you were the richest club on Earth, you couldn't be pressured into selling your best assets.
But that was before Alexander Isak, a man who was so good for Newcastle United that Liverpool were willing to move heaven and Earth for him: a man who got Geordies to hate him so much that Eddie Howe couldn't even contemplate reintegrating him into his team.
In all seriousness, Newcastle probably knew they'd always wave Isak on one day to a bigger side. But the sulky Swede's titanic tantrum more than helped facilitate a second British record buy of the window for Arne Slot and contribute to dozens of striped ‘ISAK 14’ to be buried at the back of wardrobes. Now to see if he was worth all that time, effort and drama, let alone the money…
3. Ousmane Dembele: £130m (Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona, 2017)
If you need further proof of Barcelona's basket case status between the sale of Neymar and the blossoming of Lamine Yamal, look no further than Ousmane Dembele, the Herculean panic buy who got injured almost immediately after moving from Borussia Dortmund and never really recovered.
Dembele's Catalan career veered to and fro, showing brilliance in glimpses as he threatened to kick on – only to dip in form or suffer another injury setback. It was a transfer that kick-started Barcelona's desperation to get back to the top table (and perhaps inflated Dortmund's reputation as champion sellers more than it should have).
As fate would have it, Dembouz would get to replace Neymar once again – this time at PSG – where he'd turn into a Ballon d'Or candidate. Because, of course.
2. Kylian Mbappe: £159m (Monaco to Paris Saint-Germain, 2018)
For our younger readers, Paris Saint-Germain were the Liverpool of their day, spending £100m or more twice in a transfer window on Neymar and Kylian Mbappe (well, they deferred the Mbappe deal by a year with a loan, in order to comply with financial regulations).
History will look at the fact that the Parisians won the Champions League less than a year after Mbappe's exit and suggest that he was, in fact, holding them back: the Frenchman's 235 goals in 264 games render that argument nonsense, though, as Mbappe became the record scorer for PSG and the single point of consistency across an era of misfiring superstars and ever-daft transfer misses.
You can claim that Mbappe wasn't a good signing at PSG because he didn't press enough. But that's not exactly fair: PSG didn't do enough to platform the guy in his seven years in Paris, and he couldn't have done a whole lot more. The drought may have ended with his exit, but he wasn't holding them back.
1. Neymar (Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain, £195m, 2017)
There's a cautionary tale in Neymar's move to Paris, in which the Brazilian sought to step out of the shadow of Lionel Messi, only to step into Kylian Mbappe's… before Messi moved to Paris, too.
Neymar was world-class for a lot of his time in France, posting 118 strikes in 173 games and looking like the best footballer on Earth at times. But that's not what he arrived in France for almost £200 million for: he made that move to become an indisputable great of the game, to secure a Ballon d'Or and lead his own team to European glory.
His absences were notable – he never played over 30 games in all competitions in a season – while his move was associated with excess and extravagance at a time when hard-running, high-pressing was king across Europe. Neymar never warmed to PSG fans like Mbappe did and only once did he take them to the Champions League final, in the silence of lockdown, where Bayern Munich ultimately triumphed and triggered the inevitable waterworks.
It's not wholly Neymar's fault that he failed to capture the success of his time at Barcelona – but come 30 years old, he was shipped off to Saudi Arabia, well and truly washed at the top level. He's won everything in the game, surpassed Pele as his nation's greatest scorer and arguably the third-best player of a generation – yet he's still seen as a tragic figure who failed to live up to his talent. That's what costing so much money does to warp perception.
