A time travel back to ten years: by summer 2015, four players had changed the club in the history of football for a transfer of 80 million euros or more. With Gareth Bale (from Tottenham to Real Madrid), Cristiano Ronaldo (from Manchester United to Real Madrid), Neymar (from Santos to Barcelona) and Luis Suarez (from Liverpool to Barcelona), all four actors changed for them when they had already appeared as an absolute world stars.
In the summer of the 2025/26 season, Florian Wirtz (from Leverkusen to Liverpool), Hugo Ekitens (from Frankfurt to Liverpool) and Nick Woltemade (from Stuttgart to Newcastle) have already changed three players for more than 80 million, whom the predicate absolute world class (probably) cannot (probably) be attributed. With Alexander Isak (from Newcastle to Liverpool) there is a fourth for the top leagues on today’s last day of the transfer window.
Florian Wirtz and Nick Woltemade switched to the Premier League for a lot of money
© AP
Potential costs money
The transfer strategy has long since changed. It is no longer the current performance but the potential is paid and above all from the English clubs. Of the ten most expensive players this summer, none is older than 28, the average age of the player is less than 25 years. The Premier League clubs spent around 3.2 billion euros in this transfer window. Record. Even though no absolute world star has found its way to England.
The only other league that the brand of one billion euros was able to crack in transfer expenses is the Italian series A. The leagues from Italy, Germany, Spain and France do not come together to spend the Premier League. Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal in particular were wearing the donation pants this summer. Behind the European leagues, Saudi Arabia continues to invest a lot of money in new players and brought Italy’s top scorer Mateo Retegui into the league. Turkey, where the transfer window is still open until September 12, spent a lot of money for new players this summer.
Mateo Retegui moved from Atalanta to Al-Qadsiah
© AFP
So while the transfer market made new records this summer, it remained quiet around the Austrians. With Jannik Robatsch and Simon Spari (both St. Pauli), Samson Baidoo (Lens), Maximilian Wöber (Bremen), Konstantin Schopp (Mainz) and Oliver Sorg (Augsburg), only six players found their way to a top five league.
