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.

Leslie Cliff and his wife Violet, English figure skating pair. Olympic games of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Germany), 1936. (Photo by Roger Viollet Collection/Getty Images)

Mae Zelinsky, left, and Betty O'Beda test ammunition on a .30 caliber rifle at a Remington Arms plant on April 30, 1943. Many women took over jobs that were left vacant when men went overseas to fight in World War II. (Photo by AP Photo)

Staff take no chances at a dog-grooming salon in Rotterdam in the second decade of June 2023. (Photo by RUT/Splash News and Pictures)

People stand in the middle of the graves and in front of giant kites in the cemetery of Santiago Sacatepequez, Guatemala, November 1, 2015. Dating back 116 years, the tradition of flying kites in the cemetery of of Santiago Sacatepequez, integrates the Catholic feast of All Saints with ancient Mayan practices of honouring the dead. It is believed that the kites connect the living and the dead during the all saints day celebration. (Photo by Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)

A fox cub with some bluebells in some woodland at Wye Valley near Gloucester, United Kingdom on April 29, 2023. (Photo by Thomas Winstone/Picture Exclusive)

A Civil Protection employee dressed as death participates in the campaign “Beware of Monoxide, the Silent Killer”, which seeks to prevent deaths from poisoning with carbon monoxide through the use of heaters to mitigate low temperatures, on an avenue in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on February 2, 2022. (Photo by Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

This 1950s photo provided by the Estate of Vivian Maier and John Maloof Collection shows Maier in a self-portrait as she looks into a storefront wearing a hat in New York. New research about Maier shows the enigmatic Chicago nanny was obsessive about honing her skills as a photographer starting in 1950. (Photo by Vivian Maier/Estate of Vivian Maier and John Maloof Collection via AP Photo)