This article is about association football as played by men. For transfers of women's association football players, see List of most expensive women's association football transfers.
The following is a list of most expensive association football transfers, which details the highest transfer fees ever paid for players, as well as transfers which set new world transfer records. The first confirmed record transfer was of Willie Groves from West Bromwich Albion to Aston Villa for £100 in 1893 (equivalent to £14,000 in 2023). This occurred just eight years after the introduction of professionalism by the Football Association in 1885. The current transfer record was set by the transfer of Neymar from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for €222 million (£200 million) in August 2017.
Highest transfer payments in association football
Most of the transfers on this list are to clubs under UEFA's jurisdiction, with most of the purchasing clubs being from England, Italy, and Spain.
Romelu Lukaku appears on this list three times for moves to Manchester United, Inter Milan, and Chelsea. Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kai Havertz appear on the list twice. All of the players on the list are of European (UEFA), South American (CONMEBOL) or African (CAF) origin. There are currently no players on the list from the remaining regions; North America (CONCACAF), Asia (AFC) and Oceania (OFC).
- As of 12 August 2024
Most expensive player by confederation
| Confederation | Player | From | To | Position | Fee (€ million) |
Fee (£ million) |
Year | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CONMEBOL |  Neymar
|
 Barcelona
|
 Paris Saint-Germain
|
Forward | €222 | £200 | 2017 | |
| UEFA | Kylian Mbappé
|
Monaco
|
Paris Saint-Germain
|
Forward | €180 | £163 | 2018 | |
| CAF |  Nicolas Pépé
|
Lille
|
 Arsenal
|
Forward | €80 | £72 | 2019 | |
| CONCACAF |  Christian Pulisic
|
 Borussia Dortmund
|
Chelsea
|
Midfielder | €64 | £57.6 | 2019 | |
| AFC |  Kim Min-jae
|
 Napoli
|
Bayern Munich
|
Defender | €50 | £43 | 2023 | |
| OFC |  Chris Wood
|
Burnley
|
Newcastle United
|
Forward | €29 | £25 | 2022 |
-
Neymar, the most expensive South American
-
Kylian Mbappé, the most expensive European player
-
Nicolas Pépé, the most expensive African player
-
Christian Pulisic, the most expensive North American player
-
Kim Min-jae, the most expensive Asian player
-
Chris Wood, the most expensive Oceania player
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World football transfer record
The first player to ever be transferred for a fee of over £100 was Scottish striker Willie Groves when he together with Jack Reynolds (£50) made the switch from West Bromwich Albion to Aston Villa in 1893, eight years after the legalisation of professionalism in the sport. It took just another twelve years for the figure to become £1000, when Sunderland striker Alf Common moved to Middlesbrough. It was not until 1928 that the first five-figure transfer took place. David Jack of Bolton Wanderers was the subject of interest from Arsenal, and in order to negotiate the fee down, Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman got the Bolton representatives drunk. Subsequently, David Jack was transferred for a world record fee when Arsenal paid £10,890 to Bolton for his services, after Bolton had asked for £13,000, which was double the previous record made when Sunderland signed Burnley's Bob Kelly a fee of for £6,500.
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Diego Maradona and Ronaldo (pictured) were twice transferred for world record fees.
The first player from outside Great Britain to break the record was Bernabé Ferreyra, a player known as La Fiera for his powerful shot. His 1932 transfer from Tigre to River Plate cost £23k, and the record would last for 17 years (the longest the record has lasted) until it was broken by Manchester United's sale of Johnny Morris to Derby County for £24k in March 1949. The record was broken seven further times between 1949 and 1961, when Luis Suárez Miramontes was sold by Barcelona to Inter Milan for £152k, becoming the first ever player sold for more than £100k. In 1968, Pietro Anastasi became the first £500k player when Juventus purchased him from Varese, which was followed seven years later with Giuseppe Savoldi becoming the first million pound player when he transferred from Bologna to Napoli.
After Alf Common and David Jack, the third player to twice be transferred for world record fees is Diego Maradona. His transfers from Boca Juniors to Barcelona for £3m, and then to Napoli for £5m, both broke the record in 1982 and 1984 respectively. In the space of 61 days in 1992, three transfers broke the record, all by Italian clubs: Jean-Pierre Papin transferred from Marseille to A.C. Milan, becoming the first ever £10m player. Almost immediately, rivals Juventus topped that with the signing of Gianluca Vialli for a fee of £12m from Sampdoria. Milan then completed the signing of Gianluigi Lentini for a fee of £13m which stood as the record for three years.
The 1996 transfer of Alan Shearer from Blackburn Rovers to Newcastle United, for a fee of £15m, kickstarted a year-by-year succession of record breaking transfers: Ronaldo moved the following year to Inter Milan from Barcelona for a fee of £17m, which was followed in 1998 by the shock transfer of his fellow countryman Denílson from São Paulo to Real Betis for a fee of approximately £21m. In 1999 and 2000, Italian clubs returned to their record-breaking ways, with Christian Vieri transferring from Lazio to Inter Milan for £28m, while Hernán Crespo's transfer from Parma to Lazio ensured he became the first player to cost more than £30m. The transfer prompted the BBC to ask "has the world gone mad"? It took two weeks for the record to be broken when Luís Figo made a controversial £37m move from Barcelona to rivals Real Madrid. A year later, Real increased the record again with a signing of Zinedine Zidane for £48 million (150 billion lire).
Zidane's record stood for 8 years, the longest since the 1940s. Real Madrid continued with the Galácticos policy by buying Kaká from Milan for €67 million (£56 million), which was the world record in pound sterling. However, both world record in euro and in pound sterling were broken by Real themselves when signing Cristiano Ronaldo for £80m (€94m) from Manchester United in the same transfer window, Four years later Real Madrid broke the record again after completed the signing of Gareth Bale from Tottenham Hotspur in 2013. Although Real initially insisted that the transfer cost €91.59 million, slightly less than the Ronaldo fee, the deal was widely reported to be around €100 million (around £85.1 million). Documents leaked in 2016 by Football Leaks revealed that instalments brought the final Bale fee up to a total of €100,759,418. In 2016, Manchester United eventually took the record away from Real Madrid, signing French midfielder Paul Pogba for €105 million (£89 million), four years after having released him to Juventus for training compensation.
A year after the Pogba transfer, however, there was a major jump in the record fee. Paris Saint-Germain matched the €222 million buyout fee of Barcelona's Neymar, converted to a reported £198 million by different sources, or £200 million more than double the previous record. This was the first time that the record fee was paid by a French club.
Historical progression
Number of record players by country
| Country | Player records | Record selling | Record buying |
|---|---|---|---|
| England |
16 | 20 | 19 |
| Italy |
8 | 14 | 18 |
 Argentina |
5 | 3 | 1 |
| Brazil |
5 | 1 | 0 |
| France |
3 | 1 | 1 |
 Scotland |
3 | 2 | 1 |
 Netherlands |
2 | 3 | 0 |
 Wales |
2 | 0 | 0 |
 Portugal |
2 | 0 | 0 |
| Spain |
1 | 5 | 9 |
 Uruguay |
1 | 1 | 0 |
 Denmark |
1 | 0 | 0 |
 Sweden |
1 | 0 | 0 |
Cumulative transfers
| Player | Paid Transfers | Fees (£ million) |
|---|---|---|
 Romelu Lukaku |
6 | £352.0 |
| Neymar |
3 | £340.6 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo |
4 | £210.3 |
| Ousmane Dembele |
3 | £187.3 |
| Álvaro Morata |
5 | £172.0 |
| Matthijs de Ligt |
3 | £168.2 |
| João Félix |
2 | £162.0 |
| Antoine Griezmann |
3 | £155.0 |
| Philippe Coutinho |
4 | £153.5 |
| Kylian Mbappé |
1 | £153.5 |
Managers
While players are often purchased for high fees, the fee to release a manager from their contract is a lot less. Usually described as a "compensation fee", the amount paid to the manager's current club is based around several factors including the total salary for the current length of his contract, as well as potential bonuses and sponsorship deals, and additional fees if the club also need to pay compensation to hire a new manager.
 | This sports-related list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (October 2021) |
For football managers, the list is as follows:
Women
Main article: List of most expensive women's association football transfersThis list only includes transfers where a fee amount is reported publicly. Fees are in thousands.
- As of 4 July 2024
| Rank | Player | From | To | Position | Transfer fee | Year | Ref. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ thousand | € thousand | $ thousand | |||||||
| 1 |  Racheal Kundananji
|
Madrid CFF
|
Bay FC
|
Forward | £685 | €805 | $862 | 2024 | |
| 2 | Barbra Banda
|
 Shanghai Shengli
|
Orlando Pride
|
Forward | £582 | €681 | $740 | 2024 | |
| 3 |  Mayra Ramírez
|
Levante
|
Chelsea
|
Forward | £426 | €500 | $544 | 2024 | |
| 4 | Keira Walsh
|
Manchester City
|
Barcelona
|
Midfielder | £400 | €470 | $470 | 2022 | |
| 5 | Tarciane
|
Corinthians
|
Houston Dash
|
Defender | £390 | €453 | $485 | 2024 | |
| 6 | Lena Oberdorf
|
VfL Wolfsburg
|
Bayern Munich
|
Midfielder | £384 | €450 | $484 | 2024 | |
| 7 | Kika Nazareth
|
Benfica
|
Barcelona
|
Forward | £339 | €400 | $432 | 2024 | |
 Ewa Pajor
|
VfL Wolfsburg
|
Barcelona
|
Forward | £338 | €400 | $429 | 2024 | ||
| 9 | Jill Roord
|
VfL Wolfsburg
|
Manchester City
|
Midfielder | £300+ | €350+ | $382+ | 2023 | |
| 10 |  Kyra Cooney-Cross
|
Hammarby
|
Arsenal
|
Midfielder | £301 | €350 | $373 | 2023 | |
Gallery
-
Kepa Arrizabalaga, the most expensive goalkeeper
-
Joško Gvardiol, the most expensive defender
-
Philippe Coutinho, the most expensive midfielder
-
Neymar, the most expensive forward and the most expensive footballer
-
Kylian Mbappé, the most expensive teenager and the most expensive player in a domestic transfer
-
Racheal Kundananji, the most expensive women's footballer
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See also
- Professionalism in association football
- List of world association football records
- List of most expensive American soccer transfers
Notes
- ^ The purchasing club carried out this transfer paying the player's buyout clause against the will of the origin club.
- On loan since 2017, permanent move in July 2018
- Initial £105 million plus reported £37 million bonuses
- Initial £100 million plus reported £5 million bonuses
- Initial £100 million plus reported £15 million bonuses
- Initial €105 million plus reported €40 million bonuses
- Fee was to be paid over time with an initial €105 million, plus another €5 million in additional bonuses; Pogba's agent Mino Raiola also received a reported €27 million from Juventus, from a portion of aforementioned transfer fee from Manchester United.
- Initial €103 million plus reported €30.9 million bonuses
- Initial £89 million plus reported £60 million bonuses
- Initial €100 million plus reported €10 million bonuses
- Initial €95 million plus reported €5 million bonuses
- Fee was to be paid over time with an initial £75 million, plus another £15 million in additional bonuses.
- The deal includes £5 million in add-ons.
- Initial €80 million plus reported €20 million bonuses
- Initial £64 million plus reported £21 million bonuses
- Fee originally in 150 billion lire; the fixed exchange rate between euro and lire was 1:1936.27
- Initial €75 million, payable in 5 financial years, plus additional €10.5 million broker fee
- Initial €75 million plus reported €11 million bonuses
- Initial €75 million plus reported €20 million bonuses
- Initial €75 million plus reported €15–20 million bonuses
- Initial €75 million plus reported €10 million bonuses
- Initial €72 million plus reported €10 million bonuses. Swap deal, Barcelona received Miralem Pjanić (valued at €60 million) and €12 million.
- Initial €70 million plus reported €5 million bonuses
- Initial €70 million plus reported €5 million bonuses
- Initial fee of £62 million with additional fees of £27 million.
- Initial €70 million plus reported €11 million bonuses
- Initial €70 million plus reported €10 million bonuses
- Initial fee of €70 million with reported performance related bonuses of €10 million.
- On loan in 2017, permanent move in July 2018
- ^ €700,000 release clause, €35,000 (5%) training fee applicable, and $75,000 (€70,000) additional variables.
- ^ €450,000 fixed and €50,000 variables that Levante expected to be met: one clause was that Ramírez must appear in 30% of games over her four-and-a-half year contract. The potential total was reported in The Athletic to be equivalent to £460,000, while it was described in Press Association reports as £384,000 and £42,000 in add-ons (£426,000). The fee was considered to be meeting Ramírez' release clause; Spanish media reported prior to the signing that it was expected to be slightly below or equal to the previous record, with English media focusing on how it exceeded the previous record purchase by Chelsea (a former world record) and would be a British record. Levante announced details of the fee at the same time as the transfer.
- ^ Including bonuses up to €70,000 / £61,000. Initial fee of €400,000 / £348,000 would be a record in itself. Forbes reported a fee of €500,000, also describing Walsh as women's football's "first $500,000 player". The approximately £400,000 figure is most consistently reported and accepted.
- Fee was player's release clause; it was triggered in February 2024 for Oberdorf to transfer at the end of the season (June 2024).
- Reported to be a club signing fee for Manchester City, and by Sky Sports to be a British record fee, it was announced as "in excess of £300,000".
- ^ €250,000 fee and €100,000 variables.
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