Manchester United signed three of the five most expensive players ever in terms of cumulative transfer fees while being rejected by the other two.
There is but one rule, mainly to prevent Neymar, Philippe Coutinho, Kylian Mbappe and others from breaking into a cumulative transfer fees feature based basically on only one of their career moves: players must have made at least fives moves for actual money to be considered. So no Cristiano Ronaldo either.
5) Sadio Mane – £100.2m from five moves for fees
FC Metz to Salzburg (£3m, August 2012)
Salzburg to Southampton (£11.8m, September 2014)
Southampton to Liverpool (£34m, July 2016)
Liverpool to Bayern Munich (£27.4m, July 2022)
Bayern Munich to Al-Nassr (£24m, August 2023)
The former most expensive African player in history was a one-time Southampton club-record signing who was twice transferred for more than £20m in his 30s after reaching his peak at Liverpool.
Bayern Munich weren’t to know, as the Ballon d’Or clause in one of the bids Liverpool rejected suggests. But one really quite poor season in the Bundesliga was enough for Mane to hop aboard the Saudi bandwagon within a year.
Mane started out as the third-biggest sale in FC Metz history with his first move, having been spotted by famously ignored Manchester United surgeon and Red Bull connoisseur Ralf Rangnick.
The Old Trafford side did try to sign Mane but he outright refused to even talk to them for one fairly understandable reason.
4) Zlatan Ibrahimovic – £125.03m from six moves for fees
Malmo to Ajax (£5.13m, July 2001)
Ajax to Juventus (£10.8m, August 2004)
Juventus to Inter (£16.7m, August 2006)
Inter to Barcelona (£57m, July 2009)
Barcelona to Milan (£19.7m, July 2011)
Milan to PSG (£15.7m, July 2012)
It obviously discounts the final three switches of his playing career, including a couple of seasons revolving around “the circle of Ferguson”. But in the first couple of decades of the new millennium it was almost a legal obligation for a European super club to rub shoulders with Ibrahimovic.
Yet only once was he involved in a transfer totalling more than £20m in value, that being a doomed union with Pep Guardiola in Barcelona.
That gamble backfired abysmally as Inter became European champions through that £40m fee and inheritance of Samuel Eto’o, who helped dump his former employers out at the semi-final stage as a makeshift full-back.
Even that blotch on his CV produced 22 goals and five trophies in 46 games before the Swede embarked on a more nomadic time, eventually settling for a jolly old time in Paris.
3) Matheus Cunha – £160.3m from five moves for fees
FC Sion to Leipzig (£13.2m, July 2018)
Leipzig to Hertha Berlin (£15.1m, January 2020)
Hertha Berlin to Atletico Madrid (£25.5m, August 2021)
Atletico Madrid to Wolves (£44m, June 2023)
Wolves to Manchester United (£62.5m, June 2025)
Newcastle are absolutely adamant that Manchester United overpaid for Cunha and inflated the market, but that move only continued the Brazilian’s trend of joining a different club every two years for an extra £18m or so each time.
Even Cunha’s first transfers were hardly cheap, with his particular brand of scrappy but skilful forward play especially appealing to Your Diego Simeones and the Bundesliga teams Of This World.
Should Manchester United perhaps be concerned the 26-year-old is yet to reach 100 appearances for any one club? Or that his £62.5m move has screwed over both Newcastle and any club hoping to sign Viktor Gyokeres? Obviously not but still.
2) Alvaro Morata – £168m from five moves for fees
Real Madrid to Juventus (£15.8m, July 2014)
Juventus to Real Madrid (£23m, July 2016)
Real Madrid to Chelsea (£60m, July 2017)
Chelsea to Atletico Madrid (£58.3m, July 2020)
Atletico Madrid to Milan (£10.9m, July 2024)
A career record of 222 goals in 633 appearances does not immediately conjure thoughts of a striker approaching £200m in total transfer fees having been traded between some of Europe’s biggest clubs over the last decade, but Morata remains an enticing presence even in his 30s.
Spain still make great use of his centre-forward skillset and upwardly mobile Como are thought to be interested this summer, after Barcelona and Arsenal were linked with moves in January.
Morata has never scored more than 15 goals in a single league season but a path of Real Madrid, Juventus, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Atletico Madrid and AC Milan – not to mention a fair few expensive loans in between – does not come cheap.
He even nearly cost Manchester United £180m once.
1) Romelu Lukaku – £310m from six moves for fees
Anderlecht to Chelsea (£10m, August 2011)
Chelsea to Everton (£28m, July 2014)
Everton to Manchester United (£75m, July 2017)
Manchester United to Inter (£74m, August 2019)
Inter to Chelsea (£97.5m, August 2021)
Chelsea to Napoli (£25.5m, August 2024)
But the absolute king of the cumulative transfer fee is and might forever remain Morata’s summer 2017 mortal nemesis Lukaku.
Only one player in history is capable of surpassing the Belgian overall, yet there are more than a few questions over Neymar’s combined £357.8m moves to Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Al-Hilal. And in any case, the Brazilian cannot compete with the sheer volume of Lukaku transfers.
As the fourth, eighth and ninth-most expensive centre-forward ever in terms of individual fees paid, Lukaku has been frequently identified as the final jigsaw piece by elite clubs with seemingly little idea of how to actually exploit his qualities.
The two best and most mutually satisfactory transfers Lukaku has ever made were also among the cheapest. His 25 goals for Everton in 2016/17 marks his best campaign in terms of personal output, while he helped Napoli recover the Serie A title upon his triumphant return to Italy.
And even those moves cost the clubs involved, hardly known for their free-spending at the time, a pretty penny too.
Lukaku is still the most expensive player in Inter history, is in the top ten of Napoli’s biggest signings and was once a club-record buy for both Everton and Chelsea. And the bloke still is only 32.