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.

Manchester City's Norwegian striker #09 Erling Haaland (L) sees his shot deflected into the net by Luton Town's Japanese defender #27 Daiki Hashioka (R) for an own-goal during the English Premier League football match between Manchester City and Luton Town at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, north west England, on April 13, 2024. (Photo by Darren Staples/AFP Photo)

A debutante from a local academy looks at her mobile phone as she waits to take part in the Vienna Ball at the Kempinski Hotel, March 19, 2016, in Beijing. The ball, which is an event organized by the luxury Kempinski Hotel chain and the City of Vienna, brings together both Chinese and foreign members of the capital's elite class. Despite a slowing economy, private wealth has soared in China after decades of rapid growth. A record number of high net worth individuals and families has fuelled a market for luxury goods, services, and events catering to China's burgeoning elite class. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

“Secrets of the Whales”. Skerry’s photographs celebrate the lives and culture of whales, illuminating recent research and their diverse behaviours. His latest work focuses on four key species: sperm whales, humpbacks, orca and beluga whales. Humpback whales bubble-net feeding off the coast of Alaska. They work cooperatively to feed on herring by blowing a perfect ring of bubbles underwater to form a net encircling the fish. The whales then swim up through the centre of the bubble net with their mouths open. (Photo by Brian Skerry/National Geographic Photo/Visa pour l'Image)

Fishermen pull up a live 2.5 metre crocodile in their net in the Western Amazon region, Brazil on September 20, 2017. The fishermen were fishing for a large river fish called Arapaima but sometimes crocodiles become stuck in the nets as well. (Photo by Carl de Souza/AFP Photo)

Fishermen use traditional cone-shaped nets on Inle lake in Myanmar in February 2022. The men steer their boats with an oar that they control with their feet. They throw the net into the water and push it down so it sinks to the bottom, then drag it back to the surface with the fish trapped inside. (Photo by Alahattin Kanlioglu/Solent News)

Jerome Holcomb of Birmingham, Ala., posses for a photo atop a longhorn steer at the Fort Worth Stockyards Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Fort Worth, Texas. The mask mandate to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has been cancelled in Texas. Holcomb said he was tired of wearing a face mask so he came to visit Fort Worth after the Alabama governor extended the mask mandate in his home state. (Photo by L.M. Otero/AP Photo)

Multicolored nets are set under olive trees to collect the olives on November 27, 2013 in Castagniers, southeastern France. (Photo by Valery Hache/AFP Photo)