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.

A competitor in the carting category of the Henrik Sečnik dog mushing race in Hraše, Slovenia on April 8, 2024. Over 100 dogs and their owners from Slovenia and abroad competed in the 10th edition of this international race. (Photo by Luka Dakskobler/SOPA Images/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Participants from an art group wearing traditional dresses rehearse Garba dance ahead of the Navratri festival in Ahmedabad on September 20, 2022. (Photo by Sam Panthaky/AFP)

A sushi restaurant staff member holds the cut tail of the auctioned 212-kilogram Bluefin tuna after the New Year's first auction of the Toyosu Market, at the Kaiten Sushi Ginza Onodera in Tokyo, Japan, 05 January 2023. Yukitaka Yamaguchi, president of wholesaler Yamayuki, and the company operating the Sushi Ginza Onodera restaurants, secured the first tuna auction of the New Year with a bid of almost 257,000 euros (36.04 million Japanese Yen). (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA/EFE)

Sudanese protesters rally outside the army complex in Sudan's capital Khartoum on April 18, 2019. Huge crowds of protesters thronged the Sudanese capital Khartoum today, a week after the army's ouster of president Omar al-Bashir, determined to complete their revolution seeking civilian rule. (Photo by Ozan Kose/AFP Photo)

A man poses in front of a portrait of late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong during the opening of an exhibition of Mao related art in Beijing, China, September 8, 2016. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A Burmese worker sets up Christmas lights inside a woman's clothing store inside a shopping mall December 6, 2011 in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Men use ropes to try and right a supply truck overloaded with wheat straw along a road in Dargai, in the Malakand district, about 100 miles northwest of Pakistan's capital Islamabad, on April 13, 2012. (Photo by Mian Khursheed/Reuters)