Some big name players stay at one club for the majority of their careers, but there are some players that don’t like to stay in once place too long.
For every Francesco Totti there is a Zlatan Ibrahimovic, for every Paolo Maldini there’s an Angel Di Maria. Players, whether by design or by no choice of their own, find themselves on the end of big money transfers to many different sides during their career.
There will be always those players who are in demand and those who it hasn’t quite worked out for at their new clubs, where another transfer is the only answer. So with that in mind, we’ve looked at the players that have accumulated the most transfer fees during their careers – excluding loan fees and add-ons.
Here’s the top 10.
10. Ousmane Dembele
- Number of permanent transfers: 3
- Combined transfer fees: £145.3m
Ousmane Dembele kicks us off, and he’s one of those players that was definitely hampered by a high transfer fee. The fee in question was £90million spent by Barcelona to sign the Frenchman from Borussia Dortmund. But he struggled to make an impact at Barcelona, eventually finding his feet at Paris Saint-Germain. And he wrote his name in history at the Parc des Princes, helping to guide PSG to a first-ever Champions League title.
9. Matheus Cunha
- Number of permanent transfers: 5
- Combined transfer fees: £154.9m
A new name on this list, Matheus Cunha has been slowly climbing the ranks thanks to his five permanent transfers from his first senior club. The Brazilian’s past two moves have been worth a combined total of £100m, and they’ve both involved Premier League clubs. The first was Wolverhampton Wanderers, to bring Cunha to the league, before Manchester United signed the Brazilian this summer.
8. Antoine Griezmann
- Number of permanent transfers: 3
- Combined transfer fees: £165.4m
Antoine Griezmann is another player to have one transfer take up a large portion of their accumulated fee. For Griezmann, it was the £107m Barcelona spent to sign him from Atletico Madrid in 2019 after a drawn-out transfer saga. As we all know, things didn’t go as planned for Griezmann at Barcelona and he returned to Atleti.
7. Matthijs de Ligt
- Number of permanent transfers: 3
- Combined transfer fees: £165.7m
Matthijs de Ligt has made three permanent transfers in his career. And they’ve all been for pretty decent-sized fees. The £38.6m Man Utd paid Bayern Munich for his signing in 2024 was the cheapest fee of the three. And he’s still only 25, with over 350 senior appearances across his four clubs — including boyhood team Ajax.
6. Kylian Mbappe
- Number of permanent transfers: 2
- Combined transfer fees: £165.7m
Kylian Mbappe has made two permanent moves in his career. But only one of them came with a transfer fee. Still, that was enough to have him sixth on the list. PSG paid Monaco £165.7m to sign Mbappe in 2018 after a one-year loan, with the Frenchman the best teenager in the world at the time. He left PSG after six years on a free transfer, but with a lot of goals and trophies.
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5. Alvaro Morata
- Number of permanent transfers: 5
- Combined transfer fees: £167.8m
Here we have a case of a journeyman really working for his accumulated transfer fee. Alvaro Morata has made five different permanent transfers during his career so far. And there’s still time for a few more before he retires. Chelsea paid the biggest transfer fee for £60m in the summer of 2017, and they managed to sell him to Atletico Madrid for £58m a few years later after an underwhelming stint.
4. Joao Felix
- Number of permanent transfers: 3
- Combined transfer fees: £181.2m
Joao Felix has climbed up the list with another big move recently, joining Al-Nassr from Chelsea for an initial fee of £26.2m. The Blues had signed Felix for £42m last summer after a loan spell. But nothing tops the £113m spent by Atletico Madrid to first sign Felix from Benfica when he was Europe’s Golden Boy. Unfortunately he hasn’t quite lived up to the height, playing with the pressure of the big transfer fee over his head.
3. Cristiano Ronaldo
- Number of permanent transfers: 5
- Combined transfer fees: £192.8m
It’s no surprise to see Cristiano Ronaldo here. The Portuguese superstar has had two clubs pay £80m+ for his services. Real Madrid were the first, spending £80m to sign Ronaldo from Man Utd. Los Blancos then sold the Portuguese forward to Juventus for £88m after nine years. The profit after such a long time is testament to Ronaldo’s quality.
2. Romelu Lukaku
- Number of permanent transfers: 6
- Combined transfer fees: £314.5m
Another player with Chelsea heavily involved in boosting the accumulated transfer fees. Romelu Lukaku has been signed by the Blues twice, first for £10m and then again for £97.5m. It was a well-made match, with Lukaku a boyhood Chelsea fan. Chelsea had hoped to get their money’s worth with the latter signing, but Lukaku struggled at Stamford Bridge. After a couple of loans, Chelsea sold Lukaku to Napoli for just £30m.
1. Neymar
- Number of permanent transfers: 3
- Combined transfer fees: £349.1m
No one has been able to beat Neymar for transfer fees yet. Obviously his £200m move from Barcelona to PSG dominates, with the Blaugrana putting in a release clause they didn’t expect to be triggered. But all three of his permanent moves have been for over £70m. That includes his first move from Santos to Barcelona, with the Blaugrana initially falsifying his transfer fee to be around £48.6m. It was, in fact, £71.5m.