Joao Felix's £26m Al-Nassr move makes him the fourth-priciest star of all-time in combined transfer fees - but who tops the list with £345M? And where does Cristiano Ronaldo rank?

Daily Mail​

6 days ago

Once vaunted as the man to step into Cristiano Ronaldo 's gargantuan shoes and lead Portugal into their new era, Joao Felix 's transfer to Al-Nassr at 25 has naturally come as a gut-punch to a lot of fans.
He emerged from the legendary Benfica academy and stunned the world with performances beyond his years, earning himself a colossal move to Atletico Madrid for around €127.2million (£113m) in 2019.
However he never lived up to that price tag, leaving for Chelsea for £47.2m only five years later.
Again, though, Felix struggled to impress, and within six months he was off on loan to AC Milan, before departing Stamford Bridge for Al-Nassr, this time his transfer fee dropping even further to around £26m.
In all, despite being just 25 years old, Transfermarkt claims that the former wonderkid has gone for a grand total of £194.89m during his career, making him the player with the fourth-highest career transfer fee.
But what about the rest of the top 10? Where does Cristiano Ronaldo rank? And who just about edges Kylian Mbappe in tenth spot? Read on to find out...
10. Philippe Coutinho - £155.69m (five transfers)
Sneaking in just (just...) £259,000 ahead of Mbappe is former Liverpool and Barcelona maestro Coutinho.
The Brazilian magician had an uncanny ability to find the top bins from outside the box, deftly curling the ball as if tracing a line into the back of the net for fun during his days at Liverpool, and naturally caught the eye of Barcelona.
After an initial approach was made in the summer of 2017, he eventually joined the Blaugrana in January 2018 for a huge £116.57m, plus bonuses to be paid out over time.
Add that to the £3.3m (Vasco da Gama to Inter, 2008), £11.23m (Inter to Liverpool, 2013), £7.34m (loan from Barcelona to Bayern Munich, 2019) and £17.27m (Barcelona to Aston Villa, 2022) and Coutinho's career total reaches the best part of £155m.
A terrific and gifted player in his hay day, Coutinho is now back at Vasco da Gama, having returned permanently this summer from Villa after an initial loan.
9. Matheus Cunha - £165.96m (five transfers)
This one, admittedly comes as a surprise, given he was only really announcing himself in the last 18 months, but Cunha has racked up a number of big-money moves in his time all the same.
As recently as July, of course, he sealed a £62.5m switch from Wolves to Manchester United, whose name will naturally be cropping up again on this list, don't fret, but that's only the half of it.
Cunha in fact emerged on the European big boys' radars at Sion in Switzerland, where he left for £12.95m to join RB Leipzig in 2018, before a £15.54m switch to Hertha Berlin in 2020, and a £30.22m transfer to Atletico Madrid 18 months later.
Cunha's progression on the pitch was mirrored in his fees clearly, going up and up unlike those of Felix, for example. A couple of years at Atletico later and Cunha was sent on loan to Wolves, where he would then move permanently for £43.17m.
Now, the Brazilian international finds himself at United as his career continues to grow, on the back of a hugely impressive 27 goals and 13 assists in 65 games for Wolves in the Premier League.
8. Matthijs de Ligt - £170.54 (three transfers)
Just a year before Felix became the toast of Europe with his Golden Boy win in 2019, De Ligt lifted the award for the continent's best young player, having become the poster boy of Ajax's resurgence.
De Ligt was the integral defensive leader in Ajax's fairy tale Champions League run that vanquished Real Madrid and Juventus and was only halted by a ridiculous Lucas Moura hat-trick in Amsterdam.
As such, the centre back has only made three moves, but each time he has joined a giant of historic proportions - in fact, it's got to be up there with the very best transfer CVs in the game.
However, perhaps tellingly, the fees paid for his services have decreased each time; first came the £73.83m paid by Juventus to bring him to Turin, before Bayern Munich splashed £57.85m to help him rebuild his career after a brief stagnation.
Now De Ligt finds himself as one of the more important central defenders in Ruben Amorim's 3-4-2-1 system, having been brought to Old Trafford by his old Ajax boss Erik ten Hag for £38.87m last summer.
7. Antoine Griezmann - £177.88m (four transfers)
The most underrated player of his generation? It's a discussion worth having, because the French forward has been one of the best players in Atletico's recent history for a good long while, despite not having the LaLiga title to show for it.
Griezmann falls under the banner of those players who were signed by Barcelona in the wake of Neymar's famous departure for almost £200m, and as such his transfer fee was a little inflated, but he is still a serious player nonetheless.
The World Cup winner joined Atleti from Real Sociedad for £46.63m back in 2014, and within five years Barca were calling, and he sealed a remarkable £103.62m move, though he was definitely at the peak of his powers at this time, having just won the World Cup in Russia.
In a curious twist of fate, Griezmann has never won the league, despite playing for two of the three teams to win it in Spain in the last 10 years. He joined Atleti in 2014 after they had just lifted the trophy, then arrived at Barca in the exact same circumstances.
Atleti then won it in 2020-21, and loaned him in that summer for two years £8.63m, only for Barcelona to, yep, win the league in his absence. Griezmann returned to Atleti permanently in 2023 for £19m, and Barca won the league two years later. He has to be one of the most unlucky players in the game, surely.
6. Alvaro Morata - £179.60m (eight transfers)
If Griezmann's transfer history is one of the most unlucky, then surely Morata's is the most bizarre.
Only one player on this list has bounced around more than the Spanish No 9, but weirdly his eight moves only include six clubs. He is also one of the few players to have played for both Madrid clubs on multiple occasions and live to tell the tale of their ferocious rivalry.
Starting out at the Atleti academy, Morata was picked up by Real in 2008 from Getafe, and stayed there until a move to Juventus in 2014 for £17.27m was followed by a return to the Bernabeu (£25.9m, 2016), a £57m move to Chelsea in 2017, a £15.54m loan to Atletico in 2019, and a £30.22 permanent move to the club from the Blues in 2020.
But then, once again Juventus came calling and Morata was back off to Turin for a £17.27m loan fee for the season. At this point, Morata had moved six times in an incredible six years, but he wasn't done yet.
After two years on loan in Italy, he would then return in 2024 after two more years with Atletico, this time joining AC Milan for £11.23m before, incredibly, another loan, this time to Galatasaray for £5.18m, which will expire in January 2026. The way his career has gone, though, don't expect that to be the end of it.
5. Ousmane Dembele - £189.97m (three transfers)
From the storm of Morata's transfer history, we come to the relative calm of Dembele's, which currently finds him leading the Ballon d'Or race with Paris Saint-Germain.
The lightning quick French forward was showing signs of potentially burning out far too early following a succession of injuries and a lack of consistency at Barcelona, but he now looks to be showing the world just what he can do once again.
He may have finally helped deliver PSG their Champions League crown, but it was a circuitous route to the top for a man who once cost Barca £116.57m as the Neymar money burned a significant hole in their pockets.
Either side of that colossal switch in 2017 came his first move, from Stade Rennais to Dortmund in 2016 for £30.22m, and then his switch from Barca to PSG in 2023 for £43.17m.
Dembele marks a significant financial loss for Barca, especially when you account for his wages and the time he spent out injured, but he has undoubtedly been PSG's gain, spearheading their charge for the European recognition that they have craved for such a long time.
4. Joao Felix - £194.89m (five transfers)
We've already been down Joao Felix Avenue, of course, but after reading through the other players in this list so far it really underlines what an anomaly he is.
Yes, he's about the same age as De Ligt and Cunha, but neither player really had the weight of expectation behind them that Felix found.
You can never really fully judge a player by their transfer fee, that is more of a question for the club directors in charge of the deals in the first place, but it certainly can't have helped a youngster who was already being compared to, I don't know, the best player his country has ever produced and probably a top four or five player of all time?!
Felix's demise is doubtless a very sad story for football fans, but it should perhaps be used as a cautionary tale to prevent more young talents from falling some way short of their billing. Could he have had more support along the way? Could we have maybe separated the player from the fee? Or is it just part and parcel of the game, that not all transfers turn out the way we hoped?
Whatever the reasons, Felix is still a supremely talented player, he just looks to be someone completely and entirely bereft of confidence and faith in his own abilities, having bounced around for the last few years with it made quite clear that he is unwanted. You can't imagine it's easy for anyone to thrive in those conditions.
3. Cristiano Ronaldo - £213.28m (five transfers)
Well then, now we're into the business end of the list, and they don't come a lot juicier than Ronaldo; he may have lost the Ballon d'Or hoarding competition to his great rival Mr Messi, but this is one he'll always have over the Inter Miami forward.
Before splashing out close to a £100m on a comparatively untested 20-year-old was even a legitimate modus operandi in the transfer market, Ronaldo was snapped up by Man United from Sporting aged just 18 for £16.4m, a record in England at the time for a teenager.
We all know what he's done in the game, it would be futile to repeat it all here, so how about the highlights? Five Ballon d'Ors, five Champions Leagues, a European Championship, two Spanish and Italian league titles as well as three Premier Leagues, and an entire shoe closet of golden boots over his 22-year-and-counting career at the top of the game.
While Messi's big moves have all been free transfers, Ronaldo has twice gone for over £80m. He joined Real Madrid for a then-record £81.17m in 2009, and then switched to Juventus for £101.03m in 2018 aged 33.
He returned to Man United in 2021 for £14.86m before a free transfer to Al-Nassr in 2022 where he signed a reported £175m-a-year deal, and will now link up with the man touted to be his successor in a strange twist of fate.
The Portuguese icon returned to Man United for just over a season back in 2021 but left in 2022
2. Romelu Lukaku - £318.82m (nine transfers)
So much stands out about this one; NINE transfers, over £300m, and the fact that Lukaku has never really been counted among the true greats of the last decade or so, despite the fact that he has gone for so much money.
Lukaku, though, hasn't just been collecting moves like they're infinity stones. He's been in demand for pretty much his entire career. Belgium's record goal scorer emerged from the Anderlecht academy, where Chelsea snapped him up for £12.95m in 2011.
Everton then paid £3.02m to take him on loan after he impressed at West Brom, and a year later the Toffees made it permanent for £30.53m in 2014, before huge moves to United (£73.14m, 2017), Inter (£63.90m in 2019), and Chelsea (£97.57m in 2021).
But from then things seemed to have stalled in his career. A succession of loans at Inter and then Roma for a total of £11.80m followed, before his ninth and last transfer to Napoli, where he just won the Serie A crown, for £25.90m in 2024.
If you look at the list of clubs there, and the trajectory, there's a clear path to the top from Lukaku, and yet it still feels like a surprise to learn that he's only won two league titles in the top five leagues, with a couple of cups and the Club World Cup in 2022 to add to his Belgian league titles in his youth.
Lukaku is now leading the line for Napoli and won the Serie A crown with them last season
1. Neymar Jr - £345.39m (three transfers)
Where Lukaku did the hard yards with nine moves to make it to second on the table, Neymar has clearly opted for efficiency, needing just three transfers to seal a stunning top spot.
It is somehow right then for the second greatest showman the game has ever known, after Ronaldinho, of course, to be top of the pile; even his transfers stop you dead in your tracks in disbelief.
The Brazilian magician supreme erupted onto the scene with a ridiculous number of montage-worthy performances for Santos, complete with an iconic mullet-mohawk hair do to match the ridiculousness of his footwork.
He then moved to Barcelona at 21 for £75.99m in 2013, and the fun continued in Spain, where he quickly became one prong of the MSN trident along with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, conquering Europe with a Treble to boot in 2014-15.
For four years he helped Barcelona to a stunning eight trophies before the allure of PSG and the financial offerings - as well as the chance to be the leading actor in their story - took him to Paris.
Naturally, the great showman Neymar Jr takes top spot on the list with a whopping £345.39m
He joined Al-Hilal for £77.71m in 2023 from Paris Saint-Germain before departing on a free
That move? Yeah, just a cool £189.97m, and yes it is still the record transfer fee of all time.
In Paris, Neymar never really delivered on that fee as he didn't deliver the Champions League crown that he was brought to produce, and not even with Messi and Kylian Mbappe at his side could he do it.
Six years later, and he was off to Saudi Arabia and Al-Hilal for £77.71m as PSG looked to reset the machine and rebuild and, in fairness, history will show it was the right move given their recent Champions League success.
Neymar, meanwhile, is back where it all began at Santos where he will likely be hoping to live out the rest of his playing days just how they began - terrorising Brazilian defences like it's nothing, with a massive smile on his face.