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.

Mask dancers take part in a parade during the the International Festival of Masquerade Games “Surva” in the town of Pernik, some 30 km from Sofia, Bulgaria, 27 January 2019. In ancient times the old Thracians held the Kukeri Ritual Games in honor of god Dionysus – known as a god of wine and ecstasy. Even today these games are also known as the Dionysus' games. Among the Kukeri dancers' are many characters, including Dionysus and his satyrs as well as others from deep history such as the tsar, harachari, plyuvkachi, startzi, and pesyatzi. (Photo by Vassil Donev/EPA/EFE)

General view of the screens in Hyde Park to showing the Royal Wedding on April 29, 2011 in London, England. The marriage of Prince William, the second in line to the British throne, to Catherine Middleton is being held in London today. The Archbishop of Canterbury conducted the service which was attended by 1900 guests, including foreign Royal family members and heads of state. Thousands of well-wishers from around the world have also flocked to London to witness the spectacle and pageantry of the Royal Wedding and street parties are being held throughout the UK. (Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images)

People look on as water from the rising Mississippi River is released through the Bonnet Carre Spillway while washing out a road May 9, 2011 in Norco, Louisiana. The Army Corps of Engineers began redirecting part of the Mississippi River through the spillway today to lower river levels and reduce pressure on levees in order to avoid a catastrophic failure. The water will flow nearly 6 miles north before emptying into Lake Pontchartrain as the Mississippi rises close to the highest level ever upriver in Memphis. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Tom Wilder, 17 from Kent, dives in the mud at the Glastonbury Festival site at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 23, 2011 in Glastonbury, England. Music fans had to brave more rain today at the five-day festival which opened yesterday. This year the festival will feature headline acts U2, Coldplay and Beyonce. The festival, which started in 1970 when several hundred hippies paid 1 GBP to watch Marc Bolan, has grown into Europe's largest music festival attracting more than 175,000 people over five days. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

A girl looks up at the trophy she won after competing in a child beauty pageant at Northcote Town Hall on July 30, 2011 in Melbourne, Australia. The controversial child beauty competition, kicked off today in Melbourne despite complaints and demonstrations by pageant opponents. Organised by the US-based pageant company that produces reality TV show “Toddlers and Tiaras”, Australian contestants will have the opportunity to pose with the reality show star, six year-old Eden Wood. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Wrocław has been selected as European Capital of Culture for 2016. The Wrocław area has many popular professional sports teams. The most popular sport today is football, thanks to Śląsk Wrocław. Some matches of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championships in Poland and Ukraine are scheduled to take place in Wrocław on The Municipal Stadium.

Photo by: penny_7b ; Source: Flickr

Two of 20 skulls to be taken possession of by a delegation from Namibia stand on display at a ceremony at Charite hospital on September 30, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The skulls are from Herero and Nama tribespeople taken by German colonial forces between 1904 and 1908, when the Germans violently suppressed an uprising in what was then German Southwest Africa, which is today's Namibia, and in the process killed tens of thousand of Herero and Nama. German scientists at the time took the skulls back to Berlin to demonstrate the racial superiority of Europeans over black Africans. Many Namibians demand a formal apology from the German government. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)