Who Are The Ten £100M+ Players?

It is fair to say that money in the world of association football is ridiculous. You will often get people saying things like ‘pay nurses a footballer’s wages’, but the truth is that the money in the sport has no basis in reality. If you were to think about how much someone earned simply for kicking a ball around the place, then your head would probably explode.

That is worth bearing in mind as we look to explore the players that have moved from one club to another for a fee that was in excess of £100 million. When Florian Wirtz was bought for that amount by Liverpool, he became the tenth to do so. Who were the others?

The Ten Players Who Have Cost £100 Million or More

Here is a look at the players that have cost £100 million or more when moving from one club to another. The prices are obviously estimates, given that some of them will have been bought in Euros, so the exchange rate matters.

It is also worth bearing in mind that inflation means that they would likely cost more in today’s money.

Taking a Closer Look

Having outlined who the ten players are that moved for a fee of £100 million or more at the time of their sale, it is worth taking a closer look at each of them.

Neymar – £200 Million

Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, to give the player his full name, made his debut with Santos in his native Brazil before earning a move to Spanish giants Barcelona. They put a release clause in his contract that was considered to be so obscenely high that no one would ever trigger it, only for Paris Saint-Germain, the sports-washing operation of the nation-state of Qatar, to do just that. The French side paid €222 million, which was around £200 million, to secure his services. Was it worth it? He won some titles and trophies in France, but didn’t help them get the Champions League they were after.

Kylian Mbappé – £163 Million

Fast forward a few years and Paris Saint-Germain were at it again, this time paying Monaco a fee of about €160 million to sign French forward Kylian Mbappé. He was considered to be amongst the most exciting players in the world at the time and was linked with a move to a number of different places, which led many to feel disappointed that he’d seemingly chosen the semi-retirement that was playing for PSG. Again, he helped the club win numerous French titles and domestic cups, but the Champions League continued to elude them until after he’d left for Real Madrid.

João Félix – £112.9 Million

Born in Portugal, João Félix was part of Porto’s youth system before eventually arriving at rival club Benfica’s doorstep in 2015. He became the youngest player to debut for their youth team and was promoted to the first team for the 2018-2019 season, becoming the youngest player to score in the Lisbon derby when he netted in a 1-1 draw. He was third in Europe’s best seven leagues in terms of goals and assists at the end of the season, which led to Atlético Madrid choosing to enter negotiations for his signature. They agreed to pay €126 million, which was just shy of £113 million, for his signature.

Antoine Griezmann – £107 Million

If you are considered to be one of the greatest players of your generation, you are always likely to command a big fee when you move from one club to another. So it is that Antoine Griezmann became one of the most expensive players in the history of the game after Barcelona agreed to pay around £107 million for him in 2019. Sadly for Griezmann, things didn’t really work out as hoped at the Nou Camp, resulting in him being sent back to Atlético Madrid on loan two years later before completing a permanent move back in 2022. He is a sign of how badly run Barcelona have been in recent years.

Enzo Fernández – £106.8 Million

Anyone who has been paying any attention to the Premier League will know all about Chelsea’s outrageous spending spree in recent years, which is shown by the fact that they have two different players on this list. Enzo Fernández made his professional debut playing for his local Argentinian side River Plate before Benfica paid around €10 million for him in 2022. He did so well there that Chelsea decided that it was worth paying close to the player’s €121 million release clause for him, stopping rivals Liverpool from getting the player. It was a British-record fee at the time they agreed it.

Philippe Coutinho – £105 Million

Philippe Coutinho was a player who had failed at a big club in Inter Milan when Liverpool decided to take a chance on him in 2013. He did brilliantly there, performing well for both Brendan Rodgers and Jürgen Klopp, to such an extent that Barcelona decided that it was worth spending about £105 million on him. That could rise to as much as £142 million if certain conditions were met, but considering that he was soon loaned to Bayern Munich and then Aston Villa, being bought by the Midlands club for a fee reported to be £17 million, it’s fair to say that things didn’t go well for the Brazilian.

Florian Wirtz – £100 Million

In the wake of Coutinho’s departure, Liverpool upgraded in areas of need thanks to the purchases of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker. That allowed the Merseyside club to win the Champions League and then the Premier League under Klopp, winning the English title again under Arne Slot in 2024-2025. That gave the club the impetus to head out and buy a player considered to be the best in the world in the form of Florian Wirtz, agreeing to pay Bayer Leverkusen £100 million up front with a possible £16 million more in add-ons. If the Reds end up paying that, they won’t mind, though, as it will mean they’ve been successful.

Jack Grealish – £100 Million

For Liverpool, spending such a huge amount of money on Wirtz is something of a risk because the club doesn’t have an unlimited budget to play with. The same is not true of Manchester City, the club that is a sports-washing platform for the nation-state of Abu Dhabi. They spent £100 million buying Jack Grealish from Aston Villa, knowing that if it didn’t work out then they could just spend a similar amount buying someone else. Whether it worked out or not is a matter of opinion considering the club won three Premier League titles, an FA Cup and the Champions League during his time there, but most consider it to be a failure.

Declan Rice – £100 Million

Declan Rice is London through and through, beginning his career at Chelsea before joining West Ham’s youth system in 2013. The defensive midfielder played 245 times for the Hammers, becoming the club captain after Mark Noble’s retirement and helping them lift the UEFA Europa Conference League title in 2023. Both his ability as a player as well as the fact that he counted as a homegrown player convinced Arsenal to spend £100 million on his signature, convinced he would be the missing piece of the jigsaw that would help them overhaul Manchester City for the Premier League.

Moisés Caicedo – £100 Million

Having won the battle over the signature of Enzo Fernández, Chelsea and Liverpool went head-to-head once more in trying to persuade Moisés Caicedo to join them from Brighton & Hove Albion in the summer of 2023. The Merseyside club agreed a fee of £111 million with the Seagulls for him, only for the player to have his heart set on going to London. It meant that Chelsea had to come up with a package that matched that, agreeing a base transfer of £100 million that could rise to £115 million depending on certain achievements during his time at Stamford Bridge.