What are semi-automated offsides, and how do they work?
Semi-automated offside technology is about to be implemented in English football.
Having been delayed from its original planned introduction date in autumn, the system will now be adopted during the FA Cup fifth round.
The technology was first used in elite-level football at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and has since been used in leagues including Serie A and La Liga, as well as the Champions League.
It is designed to make the judgement of tight offside calls easier for officials by rendering key parts of the process automatic.
So how exactly does it work?
The system aims to remove some elements of human subjectivity by replacing decisions made by officials with automated ones taken by technology.
As things stand, when a player scores after a borderline offside situation, officials in the video assistant referee (VAR) room must decide on three key things - when the ball was kicked, where and at what angle the defender's body was when the ball was kicked, and where and what angle the attacker's body was.
All three of those decisions will now be automatically taken by the technology.
Bespoke cameras will monitor a variety of key elements involved in any tight offside decision have been installed beneath the roof at all 20 Premier League stadiums.
The cameras will track the exact movement of the ball as well as 29 distinct points on the bodies of all 22 players, meaning it can be automatically determined whether or not the attacker's body was beyond the last defender's at the exact point the ball was played.
Artificial intelligence manages the process, monitoring ball and player movement, before coming up with a decision as to whether the player was onside or offside.
VAR officials check the system has correctly determined the three key points it measures before confirming the decision. The on-field officials then inform the players.
A 3D animation of the decision produced by the artificial intelligence will then be played on television for viewers at home and on big screens in the stadium.
In theory, the introduction of semi-automated offsides should mean shorter waits for decisions about whether or not a goal was offside, as automating the subjective, fiddly decisions officials used to make should be quicker.
But there will still be subjective decision-making involved in offside calls. The technology cannot determine if an attacking player was interfering with play, for example, or if a goalkeeper's vision was blocked.
Play will still be allowed to continue by assistant referees after narrow offside calls, as has been the case since VAR was introduced in the Premier League in 2019, meaning delayed flags won't be coming to an end.
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New York Times
24 minutes ago
- New York Times
Lionel Messi has made Miami America's new soccer capital. Will it last?
In Scarface, Tony Montana is driving through Miami on a balmy summer night, top down, his car upholstered in understated tiger print. 'Me, I want what's coming to me,' he says to his compadre, Manny. 'And what's coming to you?' Montana gets asked. 'The world, Chico, and everything in it.' The Club World Cup has come to Miami this summer. The World Cup is next. The One Year Out celebration held at the city's Perez Art Museum on June 11 made that feel real. Advertisement 'First of all, we're more than qualified to host it, as we know,' the Latin Grammy winner and Miami native Marc Anthony said. 'We've hosted from Super Bowls to Formula 1.' Maybe the less said about last year's Copa America final, the better. At a conference in Coral Gables, Nicolo Zini, a business executive for the host committee, talked about 'real momentum' and the importance of the Club World Cup acting as a signpost that the World Cup is on its way. 'It is not a minor selling point,' Zini added. Miami did not have a game at the 1994 World Cup. 'The stadium wasn't ready. It went to Orlando.' Anticipation is building and has been ever since Inter Miami persuaded Lionel Messi to play in MLS. Away from the Art Deco curves and sandy pavements of Miami Beach, the boxiness of Wynwood has provided a canvas for more than the pastel colours that made this city famous through the outfits of Don Johnson in Miami Vice. It is home to the world's first graffiti museum. Pedestrians on the sidewalk find themselves in the shadow of cherry-pickers, not palm trees. The pop and shake of spray paint cans alternates with the rat-a-tat-tat of spluttering exhausts from Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Messi looms large in this neighbourhood. He smiles down from murals, as he does outside the Fiorito in Little Haiti, a steakhouse named after the Buenos Aires barrio where Diego Maradona grew up. It's a place where some of the area's 58,000 Argentinians come for blood sausage, empanadas and a vacio-cut so good you order it for main and dessert. Framed on the wall are a pair of red and yellow cards signed by Hector Elizondo, the Argentine referee who sent off Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup final. A Boca Juniors basketball game is on the TV. It is niche. Messi isn't everywhere in Miami. He plays and trains on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale, where autograph hunters all the way from Tucuman wait on the corner for his Maybach to turn into the Florida Blue Training Center. Advertisement This is a sprawling place and as such, you can ride around for hours without seeing Messi — apart from, every now and again, on towering freeway billboards where he competes for advertising space with injury lawyers, pharmaceuticals and air conditioning units. You don't need a car collection like the Miami Heat's legendary coach Pat Riley to get around the city, but you do need to drive. It is one big Scalextric track with rising, bending interchanges that look like albino anacondas surging out of the Everglades. F1's recent success here makes sense. The number of cars is perhaps why the city's most famous pieces of architecture are the stacked garages, like the Herzog & de Meuron one on 111 Lincoln Road. It is why the Hard Rock Stadium has 26,718 parking spaces. You reach it via Dan Marino Boulevard and Don Shula Drive, a pair of greats in Miami Dolphins lore. It is a reminder that the other football remains America's Game. Shula's passing was a big moment in Miami sports. On the way to the mixed zone at the Hard Rock, you pass the 72 Club, a hospitality experience named after the team Shula coached in 1972; the one and only team in NFL history to go an entire season undefeated. And yet, even as the Florida Panthers vied for and won the Stanley Cup during the group stage of FIFA president Gianni Infantino's new, expanded Club World Cup, fans turned out for the the competition in Miami. As much as half-empty stadiums were a focus of the coverage, the teal-coloured 65,000-seater Hard Rock averaged crowds of 60,000 over the first fortnight of the tournament. Some of that was down to the magnetic Messi effect. It was no coincidence that FIFA chose Inter Miami to raise the curtain on the Club World Cup against Al Ahly. The Hard Rock record, however, was for the Bayern Munich-Boca Juniors game. That, in no small part, spoke to the aforementioned Argentine diaspora — the irrationality of the Boca fans and their willingness to follow their team not only to Miami but, as their striker Miguel Merentiel said, 'to the moon, even'. Advertisement On the other, it highlighted, as Real Madrid–Al Hilal did too, that there is a market for football in Miami that isn't totally dependent on Messi. Madrid es Madrid, after all. The biggest club of all. And Americans love a winner. They love stars. And although predictable, it was striking nonetheless to see the pull Real Madrid has on Hispanic and Latino fans outside of Spain. 'Miami is a city with Latin American passion that loves soccer and has recently had the privilege of enjoying the magic of Messi and company,' Infantino said on the eve of the opening game. 'Not only that, it is also home to FIFA and Concacaf.' Joan Didion, the great writer and journalist, once observed that Miami isn't an American city but a 'tropical capital,' a 'Latin capital, a year or two away from a new government.' No matter where the World Cup is hosted, the government is — if not overthrown — then superseded, in a purely sporting sense, by FIFA. That won't happen in the U.S. but FIFA moved their legal and compliance division to Coral Gables because it makes logistical and geographic sense. After the Copa America, the Club World Cup and the men's World Cup, the next editions of the women's tournament will be held in Brazil and then the U.S.. It feels like FIFA and Messi have made Miami the football capital of America — something that Seattle, LA, Atlanta and St. Louis will no doubt dispute, but the growth potential here is remarkable. Over half of the population in Miami-Dade is foreign-born, and Spanish is the main language spoken at home and on the street. Historically, that population was drawn from nearby Cuba, which is only 90 miles off the coast. Jorge Mas Canosa, the father of David Beckham's co-owners at Inter Miami, Jorge and Jose, was one of many who exiled from Cuba after the rise of Fidel Castro. Advertisement The received wisdom assumed Cubans were interested in baseball, track and field, and boxing: not soccer. When shown reconnaissance photos of football pitches in Cienfuegos in 1970, the U.S.'s then-national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, demanded to see President Richard Nixon immediately. 'Those soccer fields could mean war, Bob,' he told an incredulous White House chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, who in turn asked: 'How come?'. 'Cubans play baseball,' Kissinger said. 'Russians play soccer.' And yet, Cuba sent a team to the 1938 World Cup, where they beat Romania in extra time and reached the quarter-finals. More recently, Miami has become a haven for Latin America's affluent and aspirational. It is a city that teems with people for whom soccer is the primary sport. Miami United tried to tap into it by signing Adriano. Miami FC, a joint venture between media rights empresario Riccardo Silva and Milan legend Paolo Maldini, had a go and still continue in the USL Championship. Only Inter Miami, however, were granted a license as an MLS expansion team. The hispanic and Latino demography of South Florida means support is fragmented. Think about it. Not everyone is Argentine. Not everyone is a Messi fan. Some 240k in the Miami-Dade and Broward counties are Colombian, and they made their presence felt at the Hard Rock for last summer's Copa America final, which Messi's Argentina won in extra time. The two nations met again in a World Cup qualifier that preceded the start of the Club World Cup. But the roster Inter Miami have built is representative of the city and South America. Benjamin Cremaschi is born and raised in Miami, the son of Argentine parents. Telasco Segovia is Venezuelan, Luis Suarez and Maximiliano Falcon are Uruguayan, Leo Afonso is Brazilian, David Martinez is Paraguayan and Allen Obando is Ecuadorean. Advertisement 'The best thing about Miami as you have seen or will see,' Inter Miami's president of business operations Xavi Asensi said at a conference held by the Argentine newspaper Ole, 'is that it is very near America.' Its proximity to more established football cultures and the conceptualisation of Inter Miami as a team not only of America but the Americas too is a benefit. Jorge Mas recently told ESPN he would like Inter Miami to one day compete in the Copa Libertadores. The brand, choice of name, colours and crest, and its association with Beckham has allowed Inter Miami to resonate far and wide. But if the pink Messi No 10 jersey is MLS's best seller and is seen in Hong Kong, Cape Town, Buenos Aires and London, it is, by Asensi's admission, because of Messi. His star power is not to be underestimated. Palermo pink would sell if Messi were in it. 'At Inter Miami,' Asensi said. 'Leo is bigger than the club.' Revenues have tripled since he joined. In April, Colombus Crew moved their regular-season home game against Inter Miami to the Cleveland Browns' stadium to meet demand for tickets. 'Wherever we go, it's like The Rolling Stones,' Asensi explained. Playing at the much bigger Hard Rock rather than Chase Stadium, their backyard in MLS, has not posed a challenge. Both group-stage games Inter Miami played there fetched crowds of 60k. It raises the question: why will Freedom Park, the new ground Inter Miami are building near Miami International Airport, have only a 25k capacity? It is, in fairness, a size in line with other MLS, soccer-first grounds in the U.S.. It perhaps also reflects a realism. Messi turned 38 earlier this week and while Jorge Mas wants him to retire at Inter Miami, that retirement is ever nearer. How long, if at all, will Messi carry on playing beyond next summer's World Cup? He has said, even during this Club World Cup, that these are his 'final games.' The end is coming. Who then will buy Inter Miami jerseys when they can't put Messi 10 on the back? Who will watch them when he is in the executive box rather than on the pitch? Advertisement The hope is that the Messi effect has a legacy. That the kids who have come to see him at Chase Stadium these past two and a half years become fans of the game, of Inter Miami in general and not just him. That the city, as Infantino desires, 'writes its name in gold letters' as major soccer destination. The world and everything in it has come to Miami. But, after Messi, after the World Cup, will it stay there? (Photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)
New York Post
25 minutes ago
- New York Post
Chelsea reaches Club World Cup quarterfinals with extra-time win over Benfica after weather delay
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Christopher Nkunku scored off a rebound in extra time and Chelsea went on to beat Benfica 4-1 in a Club World Cup Round of 16 match Saturday at Bank of America Stadium that was delayed for two hours due to lightning and took nearly five hours to complete. Chelsea advances to play Palmeiras in the quarterfinals Friday in Philadelphia. Palmeiras beat Botafogo 1-0 on Saturday. Nkunku's tiebreaking goal came in the 108th minute with Benfica playing a man down after Gianluca Prestianni received a red card. Advertisement 3 Christopher Nkunku celebrates after scoring during the Chelsea-Benfica match on June 28, 2025. AFP via Getty Images Moisés Caicedo's left-footed shot from the left side of the box was saved in the center of the goal by Anatolii Trubin, but an alert Nkunku was there to bury the deflection into the top right corner before being mobbed by teammates. Pedro Neto and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall added insurance goals in extra time for the final margin. Advertisement Reece James scored on a free kick in the 64th minute to give Chelsea a 1-0 lead. 3 Chelsea advanced to the quarterfinals in the Club World Cup. AP But with four minutes left, the match was stopped because of lightning and delayed for two hours. When the teams returned, Chelsea was called for a handball in stoppage time when the ball hit Malo Gusto's hand. 'For 85 minutes we were in control. After the break, the match changed. It's not the same game,' Chelsea coach Enzo Maresca. 'You suspend a game (for two hours), to me that's not football. I struggle to understand it. … We have been here two weeks and they have suspended six or seven games, so something is not working here.' Advertisement Angel Di Maria converted the penalty to even the match. No matter where you are in the world, you can watch the FIFA Club World Cup for free on DAZN. All you need to get started is an email address. No subscription is required, but you will have to make a free account on the streamer to start watching. DAZN also has premium, paid options available to enhance your viewing experience with HDR picture, Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound, and fewer ads. DAZN Premium plans begin at $19.99/month. Advertisement After dominating most of the first half, the English club finally broke through when the 25-year-old James laced a right-footed shot into the bottom left corner of the net. The Portuguese side had a chance to tie it in the 78th minute, but Prestianni sent a right-footed shot from the right side of the box just left of the goal. Prestianni held his head in his hands in agony after the miss. 3 Pedro Neto celebrates after scoring during the Chelsea-Benfica match on June 28, 2025. AFP via Getty Images In the closing minutes, players were pulled off the field and fans told to seek cover due to lightning strikes in the area, although it did not rain at the stadium. Only a few thousand fans returned for the conclusion. Chelsea entered with a 3-0 record against Benfica and controlled the tempo in the first half with a 5-1 edge in shots on goal. Advertisement But despite possessing the ball more than 60% of the time, the Blues headed to locker room at halftime in a scoreless tie. The match was not well attended. More than half of the lower bowl of 75,000-seat Bank of America Stadium was empty and all but a few hundred seats in the upper deck were remained unclaimed as the event continues to struggle with ticket sales in the United States even as it moved into the knockout round.
New York Times
28 minutes ago
- New York Times
Every Premier League club's record sale: From Ronaldo, Rice and Caicedo to… Oxlade-Chamberlain
Being successful in the transfer market isn't all about putting your money where your mouth is — you also need to be a dab hand at selling a player or two. Perhaps more crucial than ever before in the Premier League's profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) era, generating funds from player trading can go a long way to helping a club stay competitive in future seasons, especially if they buy well. Advertisement Already this summer, Wolves have made a new record sale in the £62.5million deal taking Matheus Cunha to Manchester United but not every club have broken their old record so recently. Here, The Athletic's Premier League writers take a trip down memory lane to run through every side's record departure. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain became Arsenal's record sale eight years ago. Over time, that has seen more scrutiny put on their ability to sell players for fees that other clubs seem to receive with ease. An emphasis was placed on that last summer, with the sales of Emile Smith Rowe to Fulham (£28m potentially rising to £34m) and Eddie Nketiah to Crystal Palace (£25m potentially rising to £30m). Those sales were consistent with Arsenal's best since Oxlade-Chamberlain's departure, as they were academy players reaching an age where they needed regular football. Alex Iwobi to Everton in 2019 (£28m potentially rising to £34m), Joe Willock to Newcastle United in 2021 (£25m) and Folarin Balogun to Monaco in 2023 (£25m potentially rising to £34.4m) are the standouts. Arsenal still need to improve when it comes to selling players they had previously signed for the first team, although that could be easier said than done. Most players they have signed over the years tend to spend their best years at the club and are on a downward trajectory when it is time for them to leave, which makes commanding a high fee difficult. Even so, the record sales across the league's top teams show they can still improve as a selling club. Art de Roché The sale of Jack Grealish to Manchester City in 2021 was a landmark moment in Aston Villa's history. At first, it was a sore subject — many Villa supporters are still not over their homegrown hero leaving — but the record fee enabled the club to regenerate and, later down the line, provide Unai Emery with the initial tools to lay down his foundation. Advertisement Essentially, receiving £100million in pure bookable profit allowed Villa to spend more than any other club in the 2021-22 season while staving off the threat of PSR for the next few years, as losses did not breach the threshold. Although it hurt at first, Villa could accelerate its ambitions to improve the squad due to the funds received. Jacob Tanswell Bournemouth were once ridiculed for spending £20million on Solanke from Liverpool, owing to going his first 39 league games without scoring and clearly toiling for confidence and a settled role in Eddie Howe's side, which was relegated in Solanke's first full year. The striker, however, gradually flourished. The next four seasons saw continued progress, rewiring his game in the Championship before, especially in Bournemouth's second campaign after winning promotion, fulfilling his long-promised potential under Andoni Iraola. The England international scored 19 league goals, securing Bournemouth a club record fee, even if 20 per cent of that went to his former club, Liverpool. Bournemouth quickly reinvested, spending the money on their own club-record signing and Solanke's replacement, Porto's Evanilson, for £40million. Jacob Tanswell Ivan Toney is one of the most important players in Brentford's modern history. He broke the Championship goalscoring record in the 2020-21 season as Brentford earned promotion via the play-offs. The striker then scored 12 goals in Brentford's first season in the Premier League, including all of them in crucial victories over Norwich and Burnley. The following year, he scored 20 goals in 33 appearances as Brentford finished ninth and he was capped by England. Toney could have been sold for a lot of money that summer but an eight-month ban from the Football Association for breaching betting rules damaged his career. Advertisement Toney joined Saudi Pro League side Al Ahli in August 2024 after he had entered the final 12 months of his contract. It felt cheap for a player who had produced some important moments for England on their way to the European Championship final that summer after returning from his suspension. The 29-year-old scored 23 goals in the Saudi Pro League last season, which was more than Karim Benzema. Only Cristiano Ronaldo had a better record. He helped Al Ahli to win the Asian Champions League, too. Brentford received a decent amount of money for Toney but his true value was a lot more. Jay Harris Not just a record sale for Brighton, but a Premier League record as well. The price kept on rising for Moises Caicedo until Chelsea signed the Ecuador international defensive midfielder in the August 2023 transfer window. They had pursued Caicedo in the January 2023 window, along with Arsenal, but Brighton were not interested in losing their rising force during that season. Bids by Chelsea of £55m and an opening offer from Arsenal of £60m, which increased to £70m, were all rejected. Seven months later, Caicedo became one of the country's most expensive transfers of all time. A significant sell-on could provide a further boost to the profit on a player bought two and a half years earlier for £4m from Independiente del Valle in his homeland. The deal is the biggest success story of the global recruitment policy that has been such an effective tool in Brighton's development as a club. Andy Naylor Odobert's spell at Burnley only lasted one season but he was one of the few players who enhanced their reputations during the 2023-24 campaign when they were relegated to the Championship. Advertisement The 20-year-old arrived at Turf Moor from Troyes as part of Vincent Kompany's recruitment drive focused on signing young, exciting attacking talent following promotion from the Championship. The winger made 34 appearances, scoring five goals, and, despite the team's struggles, offered a number of glimpses of his talent with his speed, quick feet and dynamic ball carrying. It was not surprising that he secured a move back to the Premier League and Burnley agreed a deal which saw them make a substantial profit — he'd signed for a deal worth around £10million — on the France Under-21 international. His first season at Tottenham was derailed by injury but he has the potential to be an elite attacker. Andy Jones No one of a Chelsea persuasion were happy to see Hazard leave for Real Madrid in 2019, but it has to go down as one of their best-ever negotiations and not just because it was for such a large sum. Hazard had just one year left on his contract when Chelsea conceded they could not stop the Belgian from fulfilling his dream of playing for his idol (Real Madrid coach) Zinedine Zidane at the Bernabeu any more. Despite this, Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia remained strong during discussions and managed to secure an extraordinary deal worth £89m plus add-ons that could take the final bill up to £150m. Now, unfortunately, Hazard's well-documented injury problems meant that he not only failed to live up to expectations at Real Madrid but Chelsea did not have all the add-ons triggered. But while the final total has not been made public, it went into triple figures due to the trophies the La Liga side won during Hazard's time there. This includes winning the 2024 Champions League final, even though he had retired earlier in the season. Advertisement Given Hazard played just 76 times for Real Madrid, Chelsea certainly came out of this transfer much the better of the two clubs. Simon Johnson The departure of Wan-Bissaka to Manchester United was excellent business for Palace, despite how impressive the right-back had been over the course of a whirlwind few years after his sudden emergence into the first team. That money helped to fund a £30million academy redevelopment and Palace replaced him by reinstating Joel Ward to take the first-choice right-back spot before also bringing back Nathaniel Clyne as a free. Wan-Bissaka, now at West Ham United, has not achieved as much as might have been hoped and that makes the fee stand up well, but he has still enjoyed a successful career and won the player of the year award in his debut season in east London. Meanwhile, Bayern Munich triggered Michael Olise's release clause last July in a deal which should also see Palace receive £50m. After three incredibly successful seasons in south London, where he emerged as one of the most coveted talents in the world, Olise has continued to thrive. Palace have adapted well to life without him but now he has senior France caps to his name, and is thriving in both the Bundesliga and in the Champions League. Olise was always destined for greatness and his performances since leaving only make it tougher to take that his fee was so low relative to his talent. Matt Woosnam 'If you took away all of Romelu Lukaku's goals last season, we still would have finished seventh.' That was Everton's then director of football Steve Walsh's attempt to rationalise the £75million sale of the club's top Premier League scorer to Manchester United in the summer of 2017. Advertisement Walsh's view of the Belgian attacker was far from favourable. In a 2022 interview with The Athletic, he revealed he had warned Jose Mourinho off the 'big baby' striker. But Everton missed Lukaku dearly. His replacement, Sandro Ramirez, was a flop, while the purchase of three No 10s — Wayne Rooney, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Davy Klaassen — left the squad lacking balance. A bid for Olivier Giroud was thwarted, the Frenchman later revealed, when one of his mother's friends claimed to have had premonitions that a switch to Goodison would end badly. Everton limped to eighth the following season, with manager Ronald Koeman sacked that October. Maybe they could have done with Lukaku's goals after all, Steve. Patrick Boyland It was the summer that the Saudi Pro League's financial might was felt emphatically across Europe. Karim Benzema, N'Golo Kante and Roberto Firmino all left big clubs in Spain and England for lucrative moves to the Middle East, and in west London, Fulham were unable to prevent the departure of their own star man. Perhaps softening the blow of Aleksandar Mitrovic's exit to Al Hilal in August 2023 was the £45million fee they received for the Serbian striker, who had scored 15 goals in all competitions the previous season. Mitrovic jetted off to join Brazil star Neymar up front for Al Hilal while the West London club more than doubled their money on the £22m they initially paid Newcastle for the forward in 2018. It is testament to Fulham's recruitment that the following summer they recouped a similar fee, only marginally less at £42.3m, plus £4.2m in add-ons, from Bayern Munich for midfielder Joao Palhinha, who they signed from Sporting CP for a reported £17m. Mitrovic, who made a total of 205 appearances for Fulham and scored 111 goals after signing from Newcastle United in 2018, had three years remaining on his contract when he left. Advertisement He did not play any matches during Fulham's pre-season and boss Silva said the situation was affecting the team's preparations for the new campaign. He has provided a good goal return in Saudi Arabia, scoring 47 goals in 51 league games during his spell so far. Greg O'Keeffe There was never any doubt Raphinha would leave Elland Road in the summer of 2022. After two seasons, he had surpassed all expectations to become one of the Premier League's best players and was too good for battling relegation with Leeds. Raphinha's impact on the pitch was enough to win hearts and minds in West Yorkshire, but his parting gift was a wonderful final flourish. His penalty at Brentford not only saved Leeds from the drop but also ensured Barcelona and his other suitors would not be able to take advantage of his relegation release clause. Chelsea had money on the table first but Barcelona was always the Brazilian's preference. He remains arguably the best player many Leeds have ever seen play for the club and has become a Ballon d'Or contender at the Camp Nou. Beren Cross This is the most important transfer in Liverpool's modern history and shaped the success of the Jurgen Klopp era. A fan favourite because of his slick skills, incisive passes and long-range strikes, Coutinho's exit in January 2018 felt like an inevitability. Barcelona's relentless pursuit of the attacking midfielder the previous summer had led to the Brazil international handing in a transfer request, but Liverpool chose to stand firm. While Coutinho found out that the grass is not always greener, Liverpool were able to reinvest the money banked from his sale to sign goalkeeper Alisson and centre-back Virgil van Dijk, which helped transform Klopp's side into a European force. Advertisement Over the next two seasons, Liverpool won the Champions League and Premier League, with both additions playing a pivotal role. Whatever damage Coutinho did to his reputation during the saga has largely been forgotten because of the outcome. Andy Jones Manchester City have been able to overhaul their squad — bringing in eight first-team players for a combined outlay of around £290m since the start of the year — largely by making huge amounts from sales in the past few years. Assorted academy talents have accounted for much of that but the departure of Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid provided them with a major injection of cash (which they decided not to reinvest at the time, anyway). Alvarez's time in Manchester was a bit of a whirlwind — he arrived for just £14m from River Plate in the summer of 2022, at the same time as Erling Haaland, and won the treble with City and the World Cup with Argentina in his first season. He then helped cover for injuries to Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne in his second season, but sensed that he was only ever going to be a back-up behind those kinds of big names. Besides, there always seemed to be a desire among the family, who all moved with him to Manchester, to move to a warmer climate. His attributes made him a perfect signing for Diego Simeone and City were able to command a top fee. Sam Lee Few clubs have strong-armed Manchester United into selling a player they want to keep, but then few clubs are Real Madrid. It still took a full year for the Madrid industrial complex to prise Cristiano Ronaldo out of Sir Alex Ferguson's hands through a public campaign that began in weeks leading up to United's 2008 Champions League win. Advertisement United reported Madrid to FIFA but president Sepp Blatter's only intervention was to bemoan 'too much modern slavery' in football while urging United to sell. Ronaldo agreed with Blatter's characterisation and even though he resolved to stay at United that summer, he still wanted the move desperately, and the saga rolled on into the following season. That December, after a loose-lipped Madrid director suggested a deal for Ronaldo was all but done, Ferguson memorably retorted: 'You don't think we'd get into a contract with that mob, do you? Jesus Christ. I wouldn't sell them a virus.' But he had entered a contract with Ronaldo: a verbal one, brokered at assistant Carlos Queiroz's house in Lisbon the previous summer. There, Ferguson promised Ronaldo that if Madrid returned with a world-record fee at the end of the season, he would be allowed to leave. And deep down, he suspected they would. Ferguson and Quieroz had long wondered how long they would be able to keep Ronaldo in Manchester, thinking five years maximum. That extra year made it six. 'In that period, we won a European Cup and three league titles with him,' Ferguson later wrote in Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography. 'I consider that a pretty good return.' Mark Critchley When Alan Pardew insisted that Carroll was not for sale during the January 2011 window, he did not anticipate Liverpool making a then-record £35m deadline-day offer for a British player. Carroll had shown himself to be a force-of-nature striker but was still inexperienced, yet he found himself being whisked across to Merseyside in a helicopter as Liverpool rushed to find a replacement for Chelsea-bound Fernando Torres. If Carroll's departure typified the willingness of Newcastle to sell their prized assets under Mike Ashley's ownership, Anderson's transfer to Nottingham Forest in June 2024 was the very definition of a 'PSR deal'. Advertisement Eddie Howe did not want to lose the academy graduate and Newcastle also felt forced to spend £20m on acquiring Odysseas Vlachodimos — a goalkeeper who had not featured on their wanted list — to ensure the sale of Anderson would take place before the June 30 deadline. It was an act of desperation to ensure PSR compliance, and the effects are still being felt now. Chris Waugh It was disappointing to hear a smattering of boos when Brennan Johnson came back to the City Ground as a Spurs player. Most of the crowd, however, stood to acclaim a player who had come through Forest's academy and been serenaded with chants of 'he's one of our own'. To put it in context, Forest's previous record was Britt Assombalonga's £15m transfer to Middlesbrough in 2017. Plus, the sale of Johnson was absolutely necessary at a time when Forest were breaching the Premier League's spending rules, eventually incurring a four-point penalty. Atletico Madrid had also bid for the Wales international whereas Brentford made numerous offers over the course of two seasons. Even on the night Johnson moved to Tottenham, the then-Brentford manager, Thomas Frank, was trying to persuade him to change his mind (ironic given where Frank now works). Johnson could not be dissuaded and his winning goal for Spurs in the Europa League final last season fully justified that decision. Daniel Taylor Jordan Pickford was a diamond found in the mud of Sunderland's disastrous 2016-17 season. Relegated from the Premier League with barely a whimper under David Moyes, the emergence of the gifted local boy in goal was as good as it got in a tailspin to the Championship. That breakthrough campaign in the top flight had followed multiple loans in the EFL and convinced Everton that Pickford, then just 23 and yet to play for England, was worth a fee of up to £30million. All these years later, he remains the most expensive British goalkeeper of all time and a keen Sunderland fan. Advertisement The footnote to this is that the honour might not be Pickford's for much longer. This summer's sale of Jobe Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund might eventually turn out to be worth as much as £32m if add-ons are hit. Philip Buckingham Lots of people thought that Harry Kane would spend the rest of his career at Spurs. The centre-forward started out in their academy and eventually became a first-team star after spells on loan at Norwich City and Millwall. Kane became a talisman for club and country with his ridiculous goalscoring exploits but he never won a trophy. The closest he came was the 2019 Champions League final. which Spurs lost to Liverpool. Tottenham chopped and changed managers but despite all the upheaval, Kane continued to perform at a high level. Yet in the summer of 2023, he decided enough was enough. Spurs had just sacked Antonio Conte and finished eighth, which meant that they would not be competing in Europe the following season. At the end of the transfer window, Kane joined Bayern Munich in a deal worth €100m. Spurs fans were devastated but could not begrudge him the opportunity to win silverware with Bayern, which he did when they lifted the Bundesliga title last month. Jay Harris Former West Ham United manager David Moyes believes Rice's £105million ($134.6m) departure to Arsenal in July 2023 was underpriced. 'When I see Arsenal supporters, I tell them they owe me £50m because we only got £100m for him,' said the Everton manager. The 26-year-old scored two superb free kicks past Thibaut Courtois in Arsenal's first leg quarter-final Champions League victory over Real Madrid, prompting the Emirates Stadium faithful to chorus: 'Declan Rice, we got him half-price.' Advertisement Moyes always proclaimed it would take the 'Bank of England' money for Rice to leave. The England international was in the last year of his contract, which prevented West Ham from recouping an even larger sum. Roshane Thomas The ink is barely dry on Cunha's contract at Manchester United, so it is impossible to say yet whether his move will be a success in football terms. And even though we know the figures involved, the jury is still somewhat out on how good a deal it was for Wolves. On one hand, inserting the release clause in the new contract Cunha signed in January ensured a profit of £18.5million on the fee they paid Atletico Madrid to sign the forward in 2023. On the other hand, it is possible that selling Cunha on the open market might have brought in even more money, and if Cunha goes on to be a hit for United, then the fee paid could end up looking cheap. Nevertheless, Wolves were content to resolve his future early in the window, providing both clarity and some guaranteed income. Steve Madeley (Top photos: Matheus Cunha, left, and Declan Rice; Getty Images)
