The Premier League has always attracted great players from other European leagues since its official formation in 1992, with hefty transfer fees normally attached to them – even if by today’s standards they are made to look diminutive.
Whilst we all know that inflation plays a massive part when analysing the true cost of transfers from the past, how would the ever-fluctuating value of the GBP have affected some of these iconic transfers?
To discover this, I spoke to the experts at online investment platform XTB who decided to take a look at some of the most expensive transfers in Premier League history and analyse the effect that the decreasing value of the pound would have had on these prices if the transfers were to go ahead today.
Due to the nature of the question at hand, only transfers of players being purchased from European leagues in Euros were considered for the analysis, as domestic transfers are not affected by the GBP/EUR rate.
The following table ranks the 10 transfers with the largest price increase when adjusted for inflation and differing GBP/EUR rates:
| Player | From | To | Year | Price at the time (€) | Price at the time (£) | Adjusted Price (£) | % Increase |
| Juan Sebastián Verón | Lazio | Manchester United | 2001 | €42.6m | £26m | £56m | 118.11 |
| Ruud van Nistelrooy | PSV Eindhoven | Manchester United | 2001 | €31m | £19m | £41m | 112.74 |
| Ricardo Carvalho | Porto | Chelsea | 2004 | €30.2m | £20m | £38m | 87.93 |
| Didier Drogba | Marseille | Chelsea | 2004 | €36m | £24m | £45m | 86.14 |
| Michael Essien | Lyon | Chelsea | 2005 | €36.6m | £25m | £45m | 77.85 |
| Andriy Shevchenko | Milan | Chelsea | 2006 | €43.8m | £30m | £52m | 74.08 |
| Kevin De Bruyne | Wolfsburg | Manchester City | 2015 | €75m | £55m | £77m | 41.16 |
| Robinho | Real Madrid | Manchester City | 2008 | €42.5m | £34m | £48m | 38.91 |
| Angel Di Maria | Real Madrid | Manchester United | 2014 | €74.6m | £59m | £77m | 29.51 |
| Paul Pogba | Juventus | Manchester United | 2016 | €105m | £89m | £108m | 21.11 |
Due to the strength of the GBP compared to the Euro in the early 2000s, Premier League teams were receiving much better value for their money when shopping in Europe than they do today, with transfers such as Juan Sebastián Veron (118%) and Ruud van Nistelrooy (112.74%) to Manchester United coming in at over double their original price when adjusted for inflation and GBP/EUR rates.
Even during the 2014-2016 period where the GBP/EUR was relatively high when compared to recent years but not as high as the early 2000s, transfers such as Kevin De Bruyne to Manchester City (41%) and Angel Di Maria to Manchester United (30%) see noticeable increases in their prices.
When comparing to more recent expensive transfers, Paul Pogba’s 2016 transfer to Manchester United’s adjusted price of £108m only falls short of Romelu Lukaku’s 2021 transfer to Chelsea’s adjusted transfer price of £109m. The following table ranks the most expensive recent transfers when adjusted for both inflation and GBP/EUR rates:
| Player | From | To | Year | Price at the time (€) | Price at the time (£) | Adjusted price (£) | % Increase |
| Romelu Lukaku | Inter Milan | Chelsea | 2021 | €115m | £98m | £109m | 11.52 |
| Jadon Sancho | Borussia Dortmund | Manchester United | 2021 | €85m | £73m | £80m | 10.57 |
| Kepa Arrizabalaga | Athletic Club de Bilbao | Chelsea | 2018 | €80m | £72m | £79m | 10.23 |
| Nicolas Pepe | Lille | Arsenal | 2019 | €79m | £72m | £77m | 7.50 |
| Antony | Ajax | Manchester United | 2022 | €95m | £83m | £83m | 0.00 |
| Darwin Nunez | Benfica | Liverpool | 2022 | €75m | £65m | £65m | 0.00 |
If you’d like to discover more research from the experts at XTB.com, please visit: https://www.xtb.com/en