The European Football Championship will take place in Donetsk 2012. The city is currently home to two major professional football teams in Ukraine: Shakhtar Donetsk and Metalurh Donetsk, both of which currently play in the Ukrainian Premier League. (Photo by: LancerenoK; Source: Flickr)

Ethnic San Chi women dressed in traditional costumes play a friendly football match as part of the Soong Co festival celebrations in northern Vietnam's Quang Ninh province on April 24, 2021. (Photo by Nhac Nguyen/AFP Photo)

In this July 20, 2019 photo, children play during a sports event organized by members of the Caracas FC soccer club, in Catia, one of the poorest slums in Caracas, Venezuela. When the Caracas Football Club plays, its supporters leave their ideological preferences and socioeconomic differences behind, joining together to support and take care of each other inside and outside the stadium. (Photo by Matias Delacroix/AP Photo)

Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast. The city's professional football club is Lechia Gdansk. Founded in 1945, they play in the Ekstraklasa, Poland's top division. The European Football Championship will take place in Gdansk 2012.

Photo by: Sludgegulper ; Source: Flickr

Brazilian natives of the Pareci tribe play head football with a hand-made ball for a demonstration, during the first day of the International Games of Indigenous Peoples, in Cuiaba, state of Mato Grosso, on November 10, 2013. 1500 natives from 49 Brazilian ethnic groups and from another 17 countries are gathering in Cuiaba until November 16 to compete in some 30 athletic disciplines, many of their own. (Photo by Christophe Simon/AFP Photo)

A New Orleans Saints fan parties in the stands in the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in New Orleans, Monday, August 23, 2021. Last season the team played with a marginal number of fans in a largely empty Superdome due to the coronavirus pandemic, but this year fans are allowed with proof of vaccination. (Photo by Derick Hingle/AP Photo)

Football transfers are not cheap. To have a player strengthen their ranks, teams are willing to pay big money. The football transfer considered to be the most expensive in the sport's history was that of Gareth Bale leaving Tottenham to play at Real Madrid. The Spanish club paid not less than £86 million (about $133 million at today's exchange rates) to have the player among its own. But recent news suggest that this record might be broken this year. According to reports in the media, UK Premier League team Manchester United is willing to almost double that amount.

Online hostess Xianggong (L) and other hostesses check their pictures as they gather around the photographer while taking part in a football-themed photoshoot at a photography studio in Beijing March 4, 2015. In China's online hostessing world, men find virtual company and the women can find riches. Xianggong is one of more than 10,000 hostesses on the internet site bobo.com, a live broadcasting web platform where anyone can record themselves singing, playing piano, dancing or just chatting. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)