World football transfer record

The three most recent record holders

Kaká (2009)

Cristiano Ronaldo (2009–2013)

Gareth Bale (2013–present)

This is a list of the progression of the world football transfer record when measured in British pounds. The concept of transfers in football dates back to the introduction of professionalism into the sport. The transfer of WIllie Groves from West Bromwich Albion to Aston Villa in 1893 occurred just eight years after the introduction of professionalism by The FA in 1885. Today, the record is held by Gareth Bale, who, in 2013 became the first player to cost €100m when he transferred from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid.

Transfer record progression

For a list of the highest transfer fees of all time, see List of most expensive association football transfers.

The first player to ever be transferred for a fee of over £100 was Scottish striker Willie Groves when he 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 twelve years for the figure to become £1000, when Sunderland striker Alf Common moved to Middlesbrough.

It wasn't 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.

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 FC Barcelona to Inter Milan for £152k, becoming the first ever player sold for more than £100k.

File:Maradona 1985.jpg

Diego Maradona is the only player to twice be transferred for world record fees.

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.

The only 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 FC 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. Since then, Real Madrid have always held the record, with the only players to subsequently break the record being Zinedine Zidane in 2001 when signed for £46m from Juventus, the £80m transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United in 2009, and Gareth Bale in 2013, who became the first player to cost €100m when he transferred from Tottenham Hotspur.

Comparison of fees in different nations is complicated by varying exchange rates. This table uses British Pound Sterling for older and comparison fees and Euro for newer transfers as the unit of currency.

Year	Player	Selling Club	Buying Club	Fee (£)	Fee (€)
1893	Willie Groves	West Bromwich Albion	Aston Villa	100	-
1904	Andy McCombie	Sunderland	Newcastle United	700	-
1905	Alf Common	Sunderland	Middlesbrough	1,000	-
1913	Daniel Shea	West Ham United	Blackburn Rovers	2,000	-
1913	Tommy Barber	Bolton Wanderers	Aston Villa	2,000	-
1914	Percy Dawson	Heart of Midlothian	Blackburn Rovers	2,500	-
1920	David Jack	Plymouth Argyle	Bolton Wanderers	3,500	-
1922	Syd Puddefoot	West Ham United	Falkirk	5,000	-
1922	Warney Cresswell	South Shields	Sunderland	5,500	-
1925	Bob Kelly	Burnley	Sunderland	6,500	-
1928	David Jack	Bolton Wanderers	Arsenal	10,890	-
1932	Bernabé Ferreyra	Tigre	River Plate	23,000	-
1949	Johnny Morris	Manchester United	Derby County	24,000	-
1949	Eddie Quigley	Sheffield Wednesday	Preston North End	26,500	-
1950	Trevor Ford	Aston Villa	Sunderland	30,000	-
1951	Jackie Sewell	Notts County	Sheffield Wednesday	34,500	-
1952	Hans Jeppson	Atalanta	Napoli	52,000	-
1954	Juan Schiaffino	Peñarol	Milan	72,000	-
1957	Enrique Omar Sivori	River Plate	Juventus	93,000	-
1961	Luis Suárez	Barcelona	Internazionale	152,000	-
1963	Angelo Sormani	Mantova	Roma	250,000	-
1967	Harald Nielsen	Bologna	Internazionale	300,000	-
1968	Pietro Anastasi	Varese	Juventus	500,000	-
1973	Johan Cruyff	Ajax	Barcelona	922,000	-
1975	Giuseppe Savoldi	Bologna	Napoli	1,200,000	-
1976	Paolo Rossi	Juventus	Vicenza	1,750,000	-
1982	Diego Maradona	Boca Juniors	Barcelona	3,000,000	-
1984	Diego Maradona	Barcelona	Napoli	5,000,000	-
1987	Ruud Gullit	PSV Eindhoven	Milan	6,000,000	-
1990	Roberto Baggio	Fiorentina	Juventus	8,000,000	-
1992	Jean-Pierre Papin	Marseille	Milan	10,000,000	-
1992	Gianluca Vialli	Sampdoria	Juventus	12,000,000	-
1992	Gianluigi Lentini	Torino	Milan	13,000,000	-
1996	Ronaldo	PSV Eindhoven	Barcelona	13,200,000	-
1996	Alan Shearer	Blackburn Rovers	Newcastle United	15,000,000	-
1997	Ronaldo	Barcelona	Internazionale	19,500,000	-
1998	Denílson	São Paulo	Real Betis	21,500,000	-
1999	Christian Vieri	Lazio	Internazionale	32,100,000	49,000,000
2000	Hernán Crespo	Parma	Lazio	35,500,000	55,000,000
2000	Luís Figo	Barcelona	Real Madrid	37,000,000	62,000,000
2001	Zinedine Zidane	Juventus	Real Madrid	46,600,000	75,000,000
2009	Kaká	Milan	Real Madrid	56,000,000	68,000,000
2009	Cristiano Ronaldo	Manchester United	Real Madrid	80,000,000	94,000,000
2013	Gareth Bale	Tottenham Hotspur	Real Madrid	85,300,000	100,000,000

Number of records by country

Country	Player records	Record selling	Record buying
England	12	16	14
Italy	8	13	18
Argentina	5	3	1
Brazil	3	1	0
Scotland	2	1	1
Netherlands	2	2	0
France	2	1	0
Wales	2	0	0
Portugal	2	0	0
Spain	1	4	8
Uruguay	1	1	0
Denmark	1	0	0
Sweden	1	0	0

Number of records by continent

Continent	Player records	Record selling	Record buying
UEFA	34	38	42
CONMEBOL	9	5	1

See also

• List of most expensive association football transfers
• Transfer (association football)
• Progression of British football transfer fee record

Notes

A. ^a The Juventus FC web site reported the total fee was exactly 150 billion lira. The Juventus FC financial statement for 2002 describes this as approximately €75m. Using the official base exchange rate for lira to pounds for that time (9 July 2001), this is exactly £46,589,576.90 in pounds sterling, reported in Britain variously between £46m and £47m at the time.

B. ^b For comparisons, this list uses a valuation of the fee converted to British pounds at the time of the transfer. Zidane's fee in 2001 was 150 billion lira, then equivalent to €77.5m. This appears to be 30% larger than Figo's €60m fee. That comparison in Euros is coincidentally valid because the British pound and the Euro didn't mutually vary much in the intervening year. Kaká's transfer fee of €65m was eight years later in 2009. Due to the valuation method used in this list, Zidane's fee in "2001-Euros" cannot be compared numerically with Kaká's fee in "2009-Euros". In this context, they are different units of currency, and must be converted to the valuation currency first. This paradox is inherent to multiple currency comparisons across time, regardless of the currency and conversion time-frame are chosen as the standard for valuation.

C. ^c Conversion by British journalists; the actual offer was made and concluded at €94m.

D. ^d The Gareth Bale transfer was for exactly €100m. This was converted from euros to pounds by the British media, where it was widely reported as £85.3m.