Record-breaking one-off moves may make the headlines, but some players have racked up some eye-watering transfer totals over the course of their careers.
Others, meanwhile, have managed such huge fees in one gigantic hit, clubs willing to provide astronomical offers just to improve their chances of success. Some work out brilliantly, while many have burned and failed before our very eyes.
For quite a while, Nicolas Anelka held the title of cumulatively most expensive player of all time, the Frenchman often the answer in the classic quiz question. He now, though, doesn't even make the top ten, after clubs continue to up their spending on goalscorers, creators and everything in between. So who is the most cumulatively expensive footballer in history? FourFourTwo ranks the top ten below.
10. Zlatan Ibrahimovic - £145 million
The first player on this list is also the only one not still playing, after Zlatan retired in the summer of 2023.
Having been signed for clubs such as Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Barcelona, PSG and Manchester United, it's no wonder the Swede has such a lucrative accumulation of transfer fees.
It's worth bearing in mind, though, that none have broken the bank, per se, with his transfer from Inter to Barca his most expensive at £57m. Having scored goals wherever he went, regardless of his age, Zlatan certainly proved his worth throughout his established career.
9. Angel Di Maria - £147.2 million
Di Maria doesn't even crack the top 20 in terms of the most expensive individual transfers of all time, but it rather goes without saying that he's made clubs a healthy amount more than once.
The biggest deal of the Argentine playmaker's career was his £59.7 million move to Manchester United in the summer of 2014 - the most ever paid by a British club at the time.
He'd be on his way only a year later, though, joining PSG for a sizeable yet non-record-breaking fee of around £44 million. A free transfer to Juventus in 2022 saw him last just a year in Turin, before becoming a free agent once again.
8. Antoine Griezmann - £153 million
Given their current financial plight, Barcelona are probably wishing they hadn't activated Griezmann's £108 million release clause in 2019.
The Frenchman moved to Barca five years after joining Atletico from Real Sociedad (apparently he can only play for stripy Spanish clubs) for around £24 million.
The Fortnite-dancing World Cup winner then returned to Atleti on loan for the season, before they then had to stump up £21m in a permanent deal after the Frenchman played a certain number of games for Diego Simeone's side.
7. Kylian Mbappe - £165.7 million
There's not much cumulative about this one; one move took care of the whole amount!
Taking the concept of making a loan switch permanent to new extremes, PSG made Mbappe the most expensive European player of all time in the summer of 2018.
The French World Cup-winning star's next move could be for, er, quite a bit less than that, though. Real Madrid have tried and failed to land Mbappe in each of the last few years, but he has just one season remaining on his contract and has already said he wants to leave...
6. Alvaro Morata - £160.8 million
Believe it or not, considering his less-than impressive goalscoring record, Alvaro Morata is the second-most expensive number nine of all time when you add all his moves together.
Things didn't exactly work out at Chelsea, who broke their transfer record to sign the Spaniard from Real Madrid for close to £60 million in 2017. The Blues didn't take too much of a hit to their pocket, however, selling him to Atletico Madrid for a similar fee in 2020.
Despite still having some years left in his career, don't expect that £160.8 million total to increase too much in the near future.
5. Philippe Coutinho - £167.9 million
Guess who ultimately paid £142 million of that total? Yep! Barcelona - who signed the silky Brazilian from Liverpool in January 2018.
Coutinho joined the Reds from Inter for a bargain £7.5 million in January 2013, before making that colossal move - still the third-most expensive transfer of all time - five years later. And it only took 18 months for Barca to loan their record signing out to Bayern Munich - who he famously scored twice for in an 8-2 Champions League quarter-final rout at Camp Nou.
A £17m move to Aston Villa has since added more to his overall transfer total, though the Brazilian has failed to stamp his authority at Villa Park in any meaningful way.
7=. Ousmane Dembele - £203 million
You're beginning to see why Barcelona ended up in such a pickle, aren't you?
Two years before splashing out over £100 million for one France international, they spent considerably more than that on another.
Dembele's time at Camp Nou was blighted by injuries, and Barća were reportedly open to offloading him at various points for massively knocked-down prices (although that would still have bumped him up this list). Finally, PSG paid another £50m (because of course they did) to push him further up this list.
3. Cristiano Ronaldo - £210.1 million
Ronaldo's then world record £80m transfer from Manchester United to Real Madrid in 2009 disrupted the market to a great extent - the astronomical fee signalling a new era of prices clubs would later demand for their star players.
However, his move in 2018 to Juventus actually worked out as more expensive, before his return to Old Trafford in 2021 came up as pocket change (£12.86 million, to be precise).
The Portuguese is now in Saudi Arabia, though he ended up at Al-Nassr on a free transfer after throwing his toys out the pram at United and having his contract 'mutually' terminated.
1. Romelu Lukaku - £291 million
Lukaku returned to Chelsea in the summer of 2021 for a touch under £100 million, seven years on from leaving Stamford Bridge for Everton for a now paltry-looking £28 million.
Moves to Manchester United and Inter Milan in between came to almost £150 million. Now at Roma on loan, he's far too expensive for Chelsea to run for anyone to even consider forking out more more money on him.
2. Neymar - £338.8 million
It's hardly a surprise that the player involved in the most expensive transfer in football history tops this list.
Love him or hate him, Neymar is a bona fide superstar - £200 million worth of superstar, at one stage, to be exact.
That's what PSG paid to prise him away from Barcelona in 2017 - and with a €90m move to Al-Hilal over the summer, the Brazilian king surpassed Roma-bound Romelu in the list once more.
