Future of football transfers: Can Premier League clubs keep smashing records?
What does the future hold for transfers? Which leagues will produce the next global superstars and what will the world-record fee look like in 2050?
As part of theFuture of Football series, Sky Sports investigates the past and present, and make predictions for the future, based on data and projections from leading experts...
Premier League clubs splashed a record-breaking £2.9bn on transfers last season, which marks an exponential leap from the previous record of £1.9bn set in 2017/18.
All of the top 20 most expensive signings during the Premier League era date since 2016/17, which was when Paul Pogba broke the world-record transfer fee after joining Manchester United from Juventus for £93.25m.
Before 2016/17, only three deals appear in the top 40: Angel Di Maria (£61m to Manchester United in 2014/15), Kevin De Bruyne (£55m to Manchester City in 2015/16) and Fernando Torres (£50m to Chelsea in 2010/11).
World-record fees have come a long way since Aston Villa paved the way when they splashed £100 on Willie Groves in 1893.
The six-digit figure wasn't smashed until the 1960s, when Luis Suarez - not the former Liverpool striker - joined Inter Milan for £152,000.
Italian clubs repeatedly broke the world record from the early 1950s until the early 1990s, before La Liga muscled into pole position and dominated into the 2000s with Real Madrid's Galacticos era.
Premier League clubs spent merely £40m on new signings in 1992/93. Across world football, that was the year Jean-Pierre Papin broke the world-record fee at £10m, days before Gianluca Vialli (£12m) and, then, Gianluigi Lentini (£13m) secured record transfers.
Compare that with 2022/23, when Premier League clubs splashed £2.9bn - 72 times the expenditure spent 31 years ago.
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