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.

An Indian Sikh devotee takes a dip in the holy sarover (water tank) at the Golden Temple on the eve of “Ghallughara Diwas”, the 29th Anniversary of Operation Bluestar, in Amritsar on June 5, 2013. The 1984 assault on the Golden Temple complex by the Indian army was conducted in an attempt to arrest separatists Sikh leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his militant followers who had initiated a movement for a separate Sikh state. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

Germany's Angelique Kerber reacts after popping a bottle of champagne, a day following her win in the final match at the Australian Open tennis tournament, at the Government House in Melbourne, Australia, January 31, 2016. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

A black bear cub performs for its mum at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife park in North Carolina, US in January 2022. (Photo by Jennifer Hadley/Animal News Agency)

A fan gestures next to a police officer while celebrating the life of British singer Keith Flint of techno group “The Prodigy” after his funeral in Braintree, Essex, Britain, March 29, 2019. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

Nationalist youths throw bottles at police officers after the annual Orange march on July 12, 2016 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The controversial Ardoyne interface is a flash point between the Catholic and Protestant communities with trouble flaring in the area frequently during the so called marching season. The Protestant Orange bands from the nearby area have been stopped from parading past the Catholic Ardoyne for the past three years. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Fashion model Irina Shayk prepares backstage at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2025 on October 15, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Victoria's Secret)

Mil Mi-8 combat helicopter flies over Moscow, Russia on May 7, 2019 during the dress rehearsal of a Victory Day air show marking the 74th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War, the Eastern Front of World War II. (Photo by Sergei Savostyanov/TASS)