In less than 50 years, the world transfer record has increased a staggering 216 times and shows no signs of stopping. Kylian Mbappe is about to set a new milestone, raising the question of how much Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, the golden players of their time, would be worth in today's market.
Today, the football world mourns the loss of Trevor Francis - the first English player to command a 1-million-pound transfer fee in 1979. However, Francis did not set the world record, as four years earlier, Giuseppe Savoldi moved from Bologna to Napoli for the equivalent of 1.2 million pounds.
Fourteen years prior, the world record was only around 1/10th of that when Barca sold Luis Suarez to Inter for 152,000 pounds. Going back to 1928, the first time the 10,000-pound mark was broken was when Arsenal signed David Jack from Bolton.
It's clear that transfer fees have taken significant leaps in line with societal developments. However, things have become truly crazy in today's era of massive money. Recently, Al-Hilal made a bid of 300 million euros for Mbappe, approximately 260 million pounds. It's worth noting that Mbappe only has one year left on his contract, and Real Madrid is even willing to wait until next summer to sign him for free. If Mbappe agrees to move to Saudi Arabia, he will break the current transfer record held by Neymar (198 million pounds) set in 2017.
Many people argue that money from the Gulf region is wreaking havoc on player values now. This is not unfounded and has been warned about since PSG, backed by Qatari investors, repeatedly spent astronomical sums on Neymar and Mbappe, leaving fans dizzy. As transfer fees have expanded disproportionately, illogical consequences have followed.
Now, any club can demand hundreds of millions for their emerging players after just one season. Rasmus Hojlund, Kolo Muani - players who were relatively unknown a year ago - have become scorching hot targets in the transfer market. Although the transaction value is agreed upon between two clubs, the demands have exploded in the current trend.
Due to excessive influx of money, the number of wealthy clubs has skyrocketed, making patience to wait a few years for a player to prove their true value almost impossible. Clubs are forced to bite the bullet and spend exorbitant amounts, even when it seems unreasonable, just to avoid falling behind. There have been too many 100-million-pound transfer deals that turned out to be "flops," with the most notable cases being Coutinho, Griezmann, and Dembele at Barcelona.
Despite these lessons, clubs cannot prevent the inflation of player prices. Declan Rice, who has not played in the Champions League, became the most expensive English player in history with a price tag of 105 million pounds. Jude Bellingham, at just 20 years old, forced Real Madrid to shell out over 100 million euros.
All these players have not achieved significant individual or team success yet. They also cannot guarantee future success. And obviously, it will be a while before they reach the "superhuman" level of Ronaldo and Messi at their peak. While Ronaldo at least experienced being the most expensive player in the world in 2009, Messi, with two transfers, both had a price tag of... 0 pounds.
Now, imagine bringing 24 or 25-year-old Ronaldo and Messi to the present day, and then valuing them at... 1 billion pounds. Is that too much? Most likely, but there's still a possibility that some club will pay!
World transfer records from 1975 until now.
