The Most Expensive Footballer in History: Who Holds the Title?
The cost of the most expensive footballer in history is in the hundreds of millions of pounds, which is not surprising given the extraordinary financial landscape of modern football.
However, not every mega-money transfer is a success. Fast forward to 2024, and the priciest player on the planet costs 30,000 times what players were valued at a century ago.
A century ago, players like Sydney Puddefoot and Warney Cresswell were the icons of football, transferring for an astonishing £5,000 each when Falkirk and Sunderland acquired them. My, how the times have changed…
The player with the highest transfer fee in the world is Neymar. The Brazilian, featured at No.35 in eScored’s ranking of Barcelona’s all-time greatest players, was acquired by Paris Saint-Germain for £200 million when he transferred from Barcelona in 2017, fueled by his ambition to win the Ballon d’Or.
This deal signaled a bold move by PSG, as the record was under £100m at the time, and the average transfer fee was around half of that: Barcelona had set a £198m release clause for Neymar, thinking it would never be activated, only for the Parisian side to take them up on it.
Who was the previous record-holder for the highest transfer fee before Neymar?
Neymar’s astronomical transfer fee surpassed the previous record held by Paul Pogba. The French midfielder was acquired by Manchester United for approximately £89m when he returned from Juventus a year earlier.
Before that, Real Madrid had been leading the transfer market with their expenditures. Gareth Bale set a new world transfer record in 2013 with a fee of reported £86m when he switched from Tottenham Hotspur, breaking the previous record of £80m that Cristiano Ronaldo had set in 2009.
Ronaldo’s record surpassed Real’s own record from that summer when Kaka was signed for a reported £56m. Prior to that, Zinedine Zidane was acquired by Real Madrid for £45.6m, breaking the previous record set by Luis Figo at £37m – both figures confirmed by the BBC in 2009.
The last English player to hold the title of the most expensive player in the world was Alan Shearer. The all-time leading scorer in the Premier League was signed by his hometown club Newcastle United for £15m when he transferred from Blackburn Rovers in 1996.
