The Premier League is arguably the most successful modern league in the world, and although it cannot claim the most expensive transfer ever, there has certainly been plenty of cash coming into, but mainly out of, clubs on English shores.
With the same amount of money in your back pocket, you could opt to purchase the most expensive player in Premier League history, or you could pick up over 15 million copies of FourFourTwo magazine from your local newsagents – we know which we’d recommend.
Trevor Francis became Britain’s first-ever £1m player in 1979 and, just over 40 years later, Jack Grealish went for a hundred times that amount. Somehow, transfer fees are still growing…
Who is the most expensive Premier League player of all time?
The most expensive player ever signed by a Premier League club is Enzo Fernandez, who was signed by Chelsea for a whopping £106.8m on deadline day of the January transfer window in 2023, from Portuguese side Benfica.
While that’s a mind-boggling amount of money, it looks like loose change compared to the club’s overall spend since new Blues owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took charge of the club; well into the billions in just a couple of years.
Who held the Premier League all-time transfer record before Enzo?
The £100m barrier has only been broken four times in the English top flight, and Chelsea put two of those on the board in 2023, with Moises Caicedo’s £100m plus £15m in add-ons potentially making him even more expensive than Enzo for the west London club in the future.
The previous record holder was Manchester City’s move for Jack Grealish, with the Sky Blues activating his £100m release clause at Aston Villa to take him to the Etihad Stadium.
Prior to that, the record lay on the other side of town, when Manchester United re-bought Paul Pogba from Juventus for a fee believed to be around £89m.
There has only been one other time a Premier League club has crossed the £100m line, but that came after Enzo’s move, with Declan Rice’s switch from West Ham United to Arsenal.
The full list of the top 10 most expensive Premier League players of all time
| Rank | Price | Player | From | To | Nationality | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | £106.8m | Enzo Fernandez | Benfica | Chelsea | Argentina | 2023 |
| 2 | £100m | Jack Grealish | Aston Villa | Manchester City | England | 2021 |
| 3 | £100m | Declan Rice | West Ham United | Arsenal | England | 2023 |
| 4 | £100m | Moises Caicedo | Brighton & Hove Albion | Chelsea | Ecuador | 2023 |
| 5 | £97.5m | Romelu Lukaku | Inter Milan | Chelsea | Belgium | 2021 |
| 6 | £89m | Paul Pogba | Juventus | Manchester United | France | 2016 |
| 7 | £82m | Antony | Ajax | Manchester United | Brazil | 2022 |
| 8 | £80m | Harry Maguire | Leicester City | Manchester United | England | 2019 |
| 9 | £77m | Josko Gvardiol | RB Leipzig | Manchester City | Croatia | 2023 |
| 10 | £75m | Romelu Lukaku | Everton | Manchester United | Belgium | 2017 |