Despite the excessive amounts of money that continue to flow throughout global football, the world transfer record hasn’t been broken for seven years now.
This is the longest such sequence since Kaka’s £56 million move to Real Madrid in the summer of 2009, which came eight years after Los Blancos had previously broken the record by signing Zinedine Zidane from Juventus for £46.6 million.
Of course, it’s almost certain that this record will be broken again in the near-term, notwithstanding the impact of financial fair play rules now in place across all European leagues and competitions.
For now, however, we’re going to take a look back at the evolution of the world transfer record and the players who have previously commanded record-breaking fees.
Remembering the World’s First £100 Player
By the early 1880s, the English Football League was the only professional competition of its type in the world.
So, English sides dominate the list of early transfer records, with Willie Groves earning the distinction of being the world’s first £100 player when he left West Bromwich Albion for Aston Villa in 1893.
The first player to command a five-figure transfer fee was inside forward David Jack, who moved from Bolton to Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal for £10,890 in 1928. Jack had previously broken the transfer record when he joined Bolton for £3,500 eight years’ before, but this landmark lasted for less than 12 months.
Global Transfers and the World’s First £20,000+ Player
In 1932, prolific Argentine striker Bernabé Ferreyra made history by becoming the world’s first £20,000 player. When he joined River Plate from Tigre for £23,000, he also became the first player from outside Britain to command a record transfer fee.
This trend continued post-war, with Barcelona’s attacking midfielder Luis Suárez becoming the first player to command a six-figure fee in 1961. Inter Milan bought the Spaniard for £152,000, with Suarez subsequently playing a key role in the Nerazzurri’s consecutive European Cup wins in 1964 and 1965.
Barely 14 years later, striker Giuseppe Savoldi left Bologna for big-spending Napoli, in a deal worth £1.2 million (or two billion lira). This was the first ever seven-figure transfer fee, while 1976 also saw the iconic Paolo Rossi sign for Juventus in a similarly seismic £1.75 million deal.
1979 also saw Britain’s first ever £1 million signing, in the form of forward Trevor Francis. He left Birmingham for Nottingham Forest at the age of 25, and subsequently scored the winning goal for Brian Clough’s side against Malmö in the 1979 European Cup final.
Escalating Transfer Fees and the Age of the Superstar
Between 1982 and the year 2000, the world transfer fee record was set and broken an incredible 14 times. The emergence of the legendary Diego Maradona was the catalyst for this lavish spending, with the Argentine signing for Barca from Boca Juniors for £3 million in 1982 before joining Napoli for an incredible £5 million just two years later.
In the summer of 1992, the world record transfer fee was broken an astonishing three times. To begin with, diminutive French striker Jean-Pierre Papin became the first ever £10 million-player, as he joined AC Milan from Marseille.
Then, Gianluca Vialli made the switch from Sampdoria to Juventus for £12 million, while the ink was barely dry on this deal before Milan swooped again for Torino starlet Gianluigi Lentini. The precocious forward commanded a £13 million fee, although a serious car accident in 1994 prevented him from fulfilling his potential at the San Siro.
Italian sides were undeniably the biggest spending at this time, and it was no surprise when Inter Milan set another new record of £19.5 million when signing Ronaldo from Barcelona in 1997.
Just 12 months earlier, the Catalan giants had signed the Brazilian for a record £13.2 million from PSV Eindhoven, but Ronaldo struck 47 goals in just 49 games to capture the attention of clubs from across the globe.
Incremental Growth and the Neymar Outlier
By the end of the year 2000, Luis Figo was the most expensive player in the world. The Portuguese winger had just made the controversial move from Barcelona to rivals Real Madrid, for a total fee of £37 million.
In the 24 years since this deal was signed, the world record transfer fee has been broken on just six occasions. This highlights a slowdown in the scale of big money moves, while the overall growth of transfer fees also diminished prior to Neymar’s aforementioned move to PSG.
Prior to the Brazilian’s stunning transfer, enigmatic French midfielder Paul Pogba was the world’s record signing. He had rejoined Manchester United from Juventus in the summer of 2016, for the eye-catching fee of £89 million.
Even when Neymar announced his desire to leave Barcelona in the summer of 2017, it was thought the financial constraints of such a deal would prove prohibitive. However, PSG triggered the player’s release clause of €222 million (£200 million), more than doubling the previous transfer record and dramatically changing the landscape of European football.
Unsurprisingly, no team has come close to breaking the transfer record since, with Neymar’s Parisian move something of an outlier in an age of financial fair play.
However, it’s inevitable that this fee will be exceeded in the near future, particularly given the growth of the Saudi Pro League and universal factors such as inflation.
