page_title: Transfer (association football)
section_title: Highest fees
hierarchical_section_title: Transfer (association football) / Highest fees
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait
context_page_description: In professional football, a transfer is the action taken whenever a player under contract moves between clubs. It refers to the transferring of a player's registration from one association football club to another. In general, the players can only be transferred during a transfer window and according to the rules set by a governing body. Usually some sort of compensation is paid for the player's rights, which is known as a transfer fee. When a player moves from one club to another, their old contract is terminated and they negotiate a new one with the club they are moving to, unlike in American, Canadian and Australian sports, where teams essentially trade existing player contracts. In some cases, however, transfers can function in a similar manner to player trades, as teams can offer another player on their squad as part of the compensation.
  According to FIFA, from January to September 2018 there were 15,049 international transfers of male players with fees totalling US$7.1 billion, and 577 international transfers of female players for US$493,235.
context_section_description: 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 12 years for the figure to become £1,000, when Sunderland striker Alf Common moved to Middlesbrough.
  It was not 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. Arsenal paid £10,890 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 £23,000, 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 £24,000 in March 1949. The record was broken seven further times between 1949 and 1961, when Luis Suárez was sold by Barcelona to Inter Milan for £152,000, becoming the first ever player sold for more than £100,000.
  In 1968, Pietro Anastasi became the first £500,000 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.
  In English football, the first £1 million fee occurred in 1979, when Nottingham Forest signed striker Trevor Francis from Birmingham City. Later in the same year, the English record fee was broken twice, with fees of close to £1.5 million being paid by Manchester City to Wolverhampton Wanderers for Steve Daley, and by Wolverhampton Wanderers to Aston Villa for Andy Gray. This was during a time when transfer fees were rapidly growing in English football, and the £1.5 million mark was finally reached in 1981 when Manchester United signed Bryan Robson from West Bromwich Albion. However, a change in transfer regulations around this time meant that all fees had to be paid in full within 12 months of the transfer being completed, and at least half of the fee had to be paid when the transfer was first finalised. Consequently, Robson's record fee remained intact for six years, when Liverpool signed Peter Beardsley from Newcastle United for £1.9 million. However, fees well in excess of £2 million had already been paid to English clubs by Barcelona, who had signed Mark Hughes from Manchester United and Gary Lineker from Everton in 1986. At this time, the highest transfer fees were mostly paid by Italian and Spanish clubs. Juventus paid Liverpool more than £3 million for Ian Rush.
  The first £2 million fee paid by an English club came in the summer of 1988, when Tottenham Hotspur signed Paul Gascoigne from Newcastle United. Within weeks of Gascoigne's transfer, the national record was broken again when Tony Cottee moved from West Ham United to Everton for £2.2 million, and again shortly afterwards when Ian Rush returned to Liverpool from Juventus for £2.8 million.
  In the space of two months in the summer of 1992, three transfers broke the record, all by Italian clubs: Jean-Pierre Papin transferred from Marseille to Milan, becoming the world's first ever £10 million player. Almost immediately, rivals Juventus topped that with the signing of Gianluca Vialli for a fee of £12 million from Sampdoria. Milan then completed the signing of Gianluigi Lentini for a fee of £13 million, which stood as the record for three years. In contrast, the English record fee that year was set at £3.6 million Alan Shearer moved to Blackburn Rovers from Southampton, a decade after the world's first £3 million transfer.
  Lentini's transfer remained intact the world record fee for the next four years, although the national record was broken more than once in many countries including England. Shearer's £3.6mi
caption: Zinedine Zidane was the most expensive player in the world for eight years.
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