Talk:Progression of the British football transfer fee record

From book
A few others I've found trawling through old Rothmans, but I'm not certain about:

Also, wasn't Trevor Francis's transfer just under £1m (Rothmans says £975,000, I've also heard £999,999) in an attempt to not give him the pressure of being the first million pound player? sjorford (talk)  12:54, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It seems that Gay was signed three days after Daley was sold - . The fees involved for both were in the £1.4m region, from what that page (and others) note.
 * As for Allen, his fee at the time was not a record, as both Daley and Gray had gone for more. My Arsenal books record a fee of £1.2m from his move from QPR, though they don't disclose the fee Arsenal took when they sold him to Crystal Palace three weeks later. I've added in Gray into the table but left Allen out.
 * Also, I've added some more records from an old (1995) edition of the Guinnes Book of Records, and some from, but I'm not totally sure of that page's veracity. Qwghlm 15:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by 82.35.12.25 moved here from article
David Mills was transferred from Middlesbrough to West Bromwich Albion, not the other way round.
 * Indeed he was. I've changed it accordingly Oldelpaso 07:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Early players
I'm dubious as to the veracity of some of the earlier records listed. In researching the career of Tommy Browell, I found that he was transferred from Hull to Everton for £1,650 in December 1911, and from Everton to Manchester City for £1,780 in October 1913. The source describes the fees as large for the time, but does not refer to them as records, so presumably the record was higher than this. Oldelpaso 12:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

It may be that there were higher transfer fees around. George Utley transfered in late 1913 from 2nd Division Barnsley to 1st Division Sheffield United for £2000. This was still raising eyebrows a year and half later as the size of the fee is mentioned in his bio. in the 1915 FA Cup programme.

--Gmac101 (talk) 13:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

How about transfers involving 'non-League' clubs ? Jock Walker (Swindon Town & Scotland FB) was transferred to Middlesbrough on 3 Apr 1913 for £1,376 (£1,126 + Allan McRobbie £250).Paplo9 18:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Where is Marc Overmars?
For how many was the transfer of Marc Overmars to Barcelona in 2000? 84.31.63.205 22:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC) COTTEE ????????????? Tony added to his list of career highlights nearly two years later when he broke the British transfer fee in his move to Everton in July 1988 for a record £2,050,000. One month later he scored a hat-trick in his debut against Newcastle United in a 4-0 win. ????????????????????????????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.20.10 (talk) 01:21, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Alan Ball
According to my source, Alan Ball's transfer from Blackpool to Everton in August 1966 was for a then-British-record-fee of £112,000, but the article states Denis Law's transfer fee between Torino and Manchester United, four years earlier, exceed it by £3,000. Maybe Ball's was the record domestic fee at that point? - Dudesleeper / Talk  15:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Same here. Ballie broke the record made by Law in summer '66. And again in 1971. After Ballie in '66 there was Clarke, Chivers and Clarke again.

I also recall Jimmy Greaves being £99,999 when he went to AC Milan. That too was a British record.

Various other omissions are there, like Keane to Man U in 1993. Also errors like Butch Wilkins going to Man U in 1984 for the same amount as Robson in 1981 ... Wilkins went in 1979 in reality. And for less than Robbo.

I think that this whole page needs redoing by a football person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tamjk (talk • contribs) 01:44, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

- Tamjk / Talk  15:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Shaun Wright-Phillips to Chelsea?
A lot of the transfer records on this page are incorrect. Wright=Phillips moved to Chelsea from Manchester City for £21m in 2005. It isn't on the list —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevo1000 (talk • contribs) 14:50, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That'll be because it wasn't a record fee. The record at the time was £29m, set in 2002 -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Charlie Roberts
According to many books, Roberts' transfer to Oldham Athletic from Manchester United in August 1913 was for a record £1,500 (or £1,750 according to others as well as this website: )Decorativeedison (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:29, 9 July 2009 (UTC).

Rio Ferdinand
The BBC references given both were published before this one on the BBC website. It states an agreed fee of £29.3 million (as did an earlier one currently used) but that in January 2004, United still owed Leeds £3.25m. Simple maths show that the total already paid was £26.05m (£29.3m minus £3.25m). United then agreed to pay a final settlement payment of £1.5m. The total paid was therefore £27.55m - £0.55m less than Veron and therefore not a record fee, although the above reference states otherwise. Anyone care to clear this up? Decorativeedison (talk) 20:26, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Torres and Carroll aren't records
Surely since neither Torres nor Carroll breaks the record set by Ronaldo they shouldn't be on this list? Have I missed something? I will revert in a couple of days if not. Prokhorovka (talk) 00:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * They'll go now. -Koppapa (talk) 17:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Andy McCombie
The Andy McCombie article says that he is "reported to have joined Newcastle United for a fee of £700.[6] If correct this would have been a world record transfer fee, exceeding the fee of £520 paid by Sunderland in June 1904 for Alf Common." There's no mention of the 1904 Alf Common record on this page - is this an oversight here, or is the McCombie article wrong? It's also mentioned in the Alf Common article. Greenman (talk) 16:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Gary Lineker
The Gary Lineker article says that he "was signed by Barcelona for £2,800,000" in 1986, after the world cup. Shouldn't he be on this list? I'd put him on myself but I'm confused by the omission, and it's not immediately obvious to me what month it happened in. Ubertoaster (talk) 15:12, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Article problems (?) and a suggestion for a much needed addition
There should be a column added to the chart showing how much the old record fee would be in today's inflation ravaged money. While people know £1,000 was worth a lot more more money 100 years ago I doubt most people would have much of a clue just how much it would have been. It's not always easy to adjust for figures from the early 1900s but it's worth a try. There may be better websites to use (surely there is an official one around), but failing that, one can always use the one at <   http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/    >.. I really think this should be added so that readers will have better understanding on the subject (it's kind of like quoting a fee in a foreign currency without giving its equivalent in the known local currency).

Also, there seems to be some problems on the article's layout. Currently the section "Record progression" is completely blank. I'm not sure why or what happened, but it seems to me the 2nd through 4th paragraphs were meant for this section, leaving just the 1st paragraph for the lede. The table at the bottom should be moved up to just after the 		Record progression section. The "See Also" should go below the references section. the Bibliography section may not even be needed since it's only one book, and its entry in the footnotes section should have all of it publication info, and ... it appears that footnotes 8 and 18 are duplicates ... this article is an example what happens when you have articles built by committees. Someone should go in and clean this one up. Don't get me wrong, I love this article - it just needs some work.__209.179.51.170 (talk) 21:16, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has as an inflation template that will automatically compute the inflation amount. For this example I replace the "Notes" section with the Inflation Adjusted section for simplicity and deleted a lot of the players in order to just include the milestone events. This is an example:

Record progression
It's kind of interesting to see that Trevor Ford cost the equivalent of almost a million pounds 65 years ago. Many people couldn't care less but I think it's worth noting. 209.179.86.123 (talk) 00:52, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

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46.7.195.132 (talk) 08:55, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Jimmy Greaves
Greaves joined Spurs for £98,000 (or £99,999 depending on which source you read) in Oct 61, which places him in the records list between Joe Baker and Denis Law. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1319538/100000-Jimmy-Greaves-transfer-had-to-be-passed-by-Treasury.html46.7.195.132 (talk) 08:54, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * His move to Milan for £80,000 in April 1961 should also be there if the information in Jimmy Greaves is accurate. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 17:09, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Martin Chivers?
He was transferred from Southampton to Spurs in Jan 68 for £125,000 and broke the record held by Denis Law at that time.46.7.195.132 (talk) 10:51, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Peter Beardsley
Peter Beardsley was the subject of a British transfer record fee of £1.9M between Liverpool FC and Newcastle Utd in July 1987, thereby breaking the previous record held by Bryan Robson

‘British’ is another word for English
all English clubs. 2601:183:4601:3480:492E:726D:BA46:12B6 (talk) 22:58, 10 June 2023 (UTC)