Chelsea are bidding to be the world’s biggest spenders in the summer window for the fourth consecutive season, but Manchester City and Liverpool have overtaken them for now.
All fees and figures are taken from Transfermarkt. The 20 biggest deals of the summer are here.
10) Burnley – £49.27m
There has been a slew of converted loans and then the first ‘new’ signing has arrived in the form of goalkeeper Max Weiss, perhaps precipitating James Trafford’s move to Newcastle. Quickly followed by the improbably named Quilindschy Hartman.
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9) Brightton – £ 51.3M
Perhaps in an effort to ensure Fabian Hurzeler has enough of an age gap over at least some of his squad, Brighton have spent a fair whack on three exciting teenagers from Sunderland, Daejeon Hana Citizen and Olympiacos, and the 21-year-old Diego Coppola.
8) Borussia Dortmund – £ 52.48m
They used the Club World Cup transfer window to bring in Jobe Bellingham and Yan Couto and they could add Jason Sancho.
7) Tottenham – £60.52m
That’s a decent whack of money spent on Kevin Danso, Mathys Tel and Luka Vuskovic before Thomas Frank even gets a say.
6) Juventus – £ 62.27m
Every penny has so far been spent on making loan signings permanent, with Nico Gonzalez their most expensive purchase.
5) Manchester United – £62.5m
They have completed the most expensive transfer of the summer so far with the capture of Wolves maverick Matheus Cunha, with Bryan Mbeumo possibly to follow. We’re not sure where all this money is coming from…
4) Chelsea – £99.1m
They were the top spenders in the summers of 2024, 2023 and 2022 and will be up there in 2025 thanks to pre-arranged moves for Estevao, Dario Essugo, Mamadou Sarr and Kendry Paez. Throw in the £30m signing of Liam Delap and the Blues are already making very expensive waves.
3) Real Madrid – £100.5m
They had already dropped £50m on Dean Huijsen and £8.5m on a few weeks of Trent Alexander-Arnold before they agreed to sign man-child Franco Mastantuono for an awful lot of money.
2) Manchester City – £109.6m
That’s the price of a Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolves, a Rayan Cherki from Lyon and a Tijanji Reijnders from AC Milan, and all of them feel like bargains. Pep Guardiola wanted Florian Wirtz but he will eventually cost more on his own.
1) Liverpool – £196m
Florian Wirtz has cost an initial £100m (yes, it could rise to £116m but we’re not worried about add-ons on this particular list) and Jeremie Frimpong has cost £29.5m. We have also added the £25m on Giorgi Mamardashvili as that transfer will be counted in this summer’s accounts. And now Milos Kerkez has joined for a cool £40m.
