Trevor Francis, who joined Birmingham as a 15-year-old, became the first British footballer to be transferred for a fee of at least £1 million when Brian Clough signed him for league champions Nottingham Forest in February 1979. The basic fee was below £1mClough claimed in his autobiography to have set the fee at £999,999 because he did not want the idea of being the first £1m player going to Francis's headbut VAT and the transfer levy raised the total payable to £1.18m. Within three months he scored the winning goal in the 1979 European Cup Final. Some four years earlier, Birmingham had also been involved in a British record transfer when they sold Bob Latchford to Everton, in part exchange for Howard Kendall and Archie Styles, the deal valuing Latchford at £350,000. The initial £25m reportedly received from Borussia Dortmund for Jude Bellingham in 2020 made him the most expensive 17-year-old in world football history.