20. Edinson Cavani
Total fees: €86.5m
Not everyone is convinced by Cavani, but you can’t argue with his goalscoring record: by the end of the 2016/17 campaign, he’d contributed 283 career strikes in 484 games. The Uruguayan’s clinical touch in and around the penalty area is what persuaded PSG to sign him for €64.5m in 2013, so too Napoli for €12m in 2011 and Palermo for €5m in 2007.
Data credit: Football Relocation Study, Movinga
19. Christian Vieri
Total fees: €87.5m
Having turned out for 13 clubs, Vieri completed more moves than any other player in the top 20; despite that, only four of the ex-Italy striker’s transfers contributed to his cumulative sum of €87.5m. Vieri’s most high-profile switch came in 1999, when Inter traded €46.48m for the former Lazio man.
18. Oscar
Total fees: €98m
Oscar became the most expensive player ever signed by a non-European club when he swapped Chelsea for Shanghai SIPG in December 2016. That move set the Chinese Super League side back €60m, which is just shy of double the €32m Chelsea paid Internacional for the Brazilian’s services in July 2012.
17. Radamel Falcao
Total fees: €103.03m
A key part of Porto’s business model is signing young talents from South America and selling them on for a profit a few years down the line. That’s exactly what the Portuguese giants did with Falcao in 2011, extracting €40m from Atletico Madrid for a player they’d acquired for just €5.43m two years previously. Atleti themselves managed to get their money back when they accepted Monaco’s €43m bid in 2013.
16. Robbie Keane
Total fees: €103.85m
A surprise entry, perhaps, particularly as the largest fee Keane ever commanded was the €24m that Liverpool deposited in Tottenham’s bank account in summer 2008 (Spurs then bought him back for €16.7m six months later). Although the Irishman was never one of the world’s priciest players, his place in the top 20 is secured by six moves which each amounted to €9m or more.
15. Kevin De Bruyne
Total fees: €104.45m
Had Chelsea shown a little more patience with De Bruyne, there’s a good chance he wouldn’t be anywhere near this list. Instead, the Blues – who’d parted with €8m to land the Belgian in 2012 – accepted Wolfsburg’s €22m offer for the playmaker, who went on to join Manchester City for €74m after just 18 months in the Bundesliga.
14. Paul Pogba
Total fees: €105m
Of all 20 players included in this ranking, Pogba has been employed by the fewest number of clubs (two). His senior career began at Manchester United, but a lack of first-team opportunities under Sir Alex Ferguson prompted the Frenchman to join Juventus on a free. Having established himself as one of the world’s best midfielders in Italy, United paid €105m to bring him back to Old Trafford.
13. David Luiz
Total fees: €110m
Eyebrows were raised when Chelsea re-signed their former defender for €35m ahead of the 2016/17 season, but Luiz proved to be a revelation. He’d been similarly scoffed at following a €50m move to PSG in 2014; there must, however, be a reason why major clubs are continually willing to spend big on the Sideshow Bob lookalike.
12. Cristiano Ronaldo
Total fees: €113m
A superb showing in Sporting Lisbon’s 2003 friendly with Manchester United supposedly persuaded Sir Alex Ferguson to sign Ronaldo for €19m that summer. He didn’t disappoint: six seasons, 118 goals, three Premier League titles and a Champions League later, the Portuguese joined Real Madrid for a then-world record fee of €94m.
11. Alvaro Morata
Total fees: €115m
If you were being unkind, you could call Morata the most expensive substitute in football history. Despite regularly being a back-up option at Juventus and Real Madrid, the Spanish striker has been sold for individual fees of €20m, €30m and €65m. Now at Chelsea, the 24-year-old is ready to nail down a starting spot.
10. Gareth Bale
Total fees: €115.7m
It’s an interesting thought experiment: how different would Gareth Bale’s life be if a proposed loan move to Nottingham Forest had gone through in 2009? The only thing that matters for the Welshman is that it didn’t; four years later, he was being unveiled as a Real Madrid player after a €100m move from Tottenham.
9. Luis Suarez
Total fees: €116.52m
Suarez was very briefly Liverpool’s record signing when he arrived on Merseyside for €26.5m on January 31, 2011, before being overtaken by Andy Carroll a matter of hours later. The Uruguayan was worth every cent for the Reds – Carroll less so – and fetched almost €82m when he was sold to Barcelona three years on.
8. Ousmane Dembele
Total fees: €120m
Dembele has come a remarkably long way in a short space of time: at the start of September two years ago, he hadn’t even made his professional debut. Since then the forward has racked up transfer fees worth over €100m, first joining Dortmund for €15m in 2016 and then signing for Barcelona in August after the Catalan club paid €105m up front for his services.
7. Nicolas Anelka
Total fees: €127.36m
Most of Anelka’s late-career moves were free transfers, but before that he swapped clubs for a fee of over €10m six times. He was at his most expensive in 1999 and 2000: Real Madrid paid €35m for the Frenchman in the former year, before getting virtually all their money back when PSG splashed €34.5m on the then-21-year-old 12 months later.
6. James Rodriguez
Total fees: €137.63m
Even James’s season-long loan to Bayern Munich this summer required an upfront fee of €10m. Still, that’s nothing compared to the €75m Real Madrid parted with to capture the Colombian from Monaco in 2014, nor the €45m that Monaco themselves spent to sign the then-Porto playmaker 12 months previously. In that light, the €280,000 Banfield paid Envigado for James back in 2008 looks like a very good deal indeed.
5. Romelu Lukaku
Total fees: €138.56m
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho sanctioned an €84.7m move for Lukaku, which has lifted the Belgian frontman into fifth place. Everton had previously paid just over €35m to secure the striker’s services, while a bid of €15m was required for Chelsea to first bring him to the Premier League in 2011.
4. Gonzalo Higuain
Total fees: €141m
Higuain became the most expensive player in Italian football history when he joined Juventus from Napoli for around €90m in 2016. That was over double the amount (€40m) the Partenopei paid for him in 2013, while it cost Real Madrid €12m to bring the Argentine striker over to Europe 11 years ago.
3. Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Total fees: €169.1m
Ibrahimovic’s most recent move may have cost Manchester United nothing, but the striker has been traded for sizeable sums throughout his distinguished career. The largest figure the Swede commanded was €66m, paid to Inter by Barcelona in summer 2009. After 156 goals and nine major trophies, the €20m PSG spent on Ibrahimovic three years later can only go down as a bargain.
2. Angel Di Maria
Total fees: €179m
Di Maria fetched a cool €138m in consecutive summers in 2014 and 2015, as Manchester United sold the Argentina international to PSG just a year after bringing him to Old Trafford. Those moves followed a €33m transfer to Real Madrid in 2010 and an €8m switch to Benfica three years previously.
1. Neymar
Total fees: €300.2m
The Brazilian’s astonishing €222m summer switch from Barcelona to PSG – a fee which broke the existing world record by a mind-boggling €117m – propelled him to top spot. With a substantial lead of €121.2m over second place, Neymar – who joined Barça from Santos for around €78m in 2013 – will surely hold on to his position for some time.
