Perusing back through some classic line-ups of France sides gone by, it’s easy to see how so many of them make it into collections of the most expensive players of all time.
Transfer fees in football have gone through the roof in recent years, but France aren’t new to this game, they’ve been producing some of the highest-value players for years.
But who tops the list of our friends over the Channel? Keep reading and let’s see…
Who is the most expensive French player of all time?
Predictably, it is Kylian Mbappe – ranked 45th in FourFourTwo’s list of the greatest footballers of all time – who wins this award, but not for his most recent move to Real Madrid, for which he was out of contract.
No, it was his first move, from Monaco to PSG, which attracted the highest-ever fee for a French footballer, standing at a cool £163million in 2018, just a year after the Parisians had splashed £200million on Neymar.
Mbappe speaks of a sad end to his time at PSG due to his contract dispute – those in charge of the budgets at the Parc des Princes will certainly have been in tears seeing one of their biggest investments walk out of the door for nothing.
Who held the all-time record transfer for a French player for Mbappe?
The level of funds required to acquire the services of Mbappe were astronomical, but expensive French players were not a new craze.
Just a year early Ousmane Dembele had set the record with his £97million move from Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona, who went on to score just 40 goals for the club – let’s hope they kept the receipt.
Dembele was unseating another recent move in Paul Pogba to Manchester United, which set the Red Devils back a significant £89million, made even more significant due to them having had the midfielder in their academy just a few years earlier.
The full list of the top 10 most expensive French players of all time
| Rank | Price | Player | From | To | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | £163m | Kylian Mbappe | Monaco | PSG | 2017 |
| 2 | £107m | Antoine Griezmann | Atletico Madrid | Barcelona | 2019 |
| 3 | £97m | Ousmane Dembele | Borussia Dortmund | Barcelona | 2017 |
| 4 | £89m | Paul Pogba | Juventus | Manchester United | 2016 |
| 5 | £70m | Wesley Fofana | Leicester City | Chelsea | 2022 |
| 6 | £69.4m | Aurelien Tchouameni | Monaco | Real Madrid | 2022 |
| 7 | £68m | Lucas Hernandez | Atletico Madrid | Bayern Munich | 2019 |
| 8 | £64.2m | Randal Kolo Muani | Eintracht Frankfurt | Paris Saint-Germain | 2023 |
| 9 | £63m | Thomas Lemar | Monaco | Atletico Madrid | 2018 |
| 10 | £53.8m | Tanguy Ndombele | Lyon | Tottenham Hotspur | 2019 |
