It's more than a decade since Wales and Real Madrid great Gareth Bale became the first €100 million player in football history.
Bale had just won his second PFA Players' Player of the Year award in the space of three seasons. He was unquestionably a leading light in the Premier League and had memorable breakout Champions League performances for Tottenham against Inter Milan thrown into the bargain.
It was enough to persuade Real Madrid that Bale ticked the requisite galactico boxes and Florentino Perez stumped up for a landmark transfer fee.
In January 2023, Bale retired. In the 10 years since his move to Spain, a handful of players have joined him in the €100m club. From Neymar to Kylian Mbappe and Paul Pogba, these were generally players with indisputable talent, huge achievements or both behind them. Sure things don't exist in football transfers, but spending €100m — or, in a few cases, an awful lot more — was supposed to be as close to a guarantee as you could imagine.
Recently, there has been a change in emphasis. Chelsea pipped Arsenal to the signature of highly rated Shakhtar Donetsk winger Mykhailo Mudryk in a deal that has something in common with Antony and Darwin Nunez's moves to Manchester United and Liverpool respectively.
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Football transfers worth €100m and more
| Player | Selling club | Buying club | Year | Transfer value |
| Neymar | Barcelona | PSG | 2017 | €222m |
| Kylian Mbappe | Monaco | PSG | 2018 | €180m |
| Philippe Coutinho | Liverpool | Barcelona | 2018 | €145m* |
| Ousmane Dembele | Borussia Dortmund | Barcelona | 2017 | €145m* |
| Joao Felix | Benfica | Atletico Madrid | 2019 | €126m |
| Antoine Griezmann | Atletico Madrid | Barcelona | 2019 | €120m |
| Jack Grealish | Aston Villa | Man City | 2021 | €118m |
| Romelu Lukaku | Inter Milan | Chelsea | 2021 | €115m |
| Cristiano Ronaldo | Real Madrid | Juventus | 2018 | €112m |
| Paul Pogba | Juventus | Man United | 2016 | €105m |
| Gareth Bale | Tottenham | Real Madrid | 2013 | €101m |
| Eden Hazard | Chelsea | Real Madrid | 2019 | €100m |
| Aurelien Tchouameni | Monaco | Real Madrid | 2022 | €100m* |
| Darwin Nunez | Benfica | Liverpool | 2022 | €100m* |
| Antony | Ajax | Man United | 2022 | €100m* |
| Mykhailo Mudryk | Shakhtar Donetsk | Chelsea | 2023 | €100m* |
fees as per footballtransfers.com
*Potential total transfer fee including add-ons
The Premier League heavyweights had all signed off on deals potentially worth €100m, once various add-ons are factored in. These are all transfers that secured players with obvious talent and exciting potential, but little in the way of achievement or experience.
Earlier in the month, Chelsea briefly looked poised to make Argentina World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez the most expensive player in British football history by meeting his €120m release clause at Benfica. Fernandez only moved to Europe from River Plate last summer.
As Nunez and Mudryk prepare to face each other in this weekend's clash between Liverpool and Chelsea at Anfield, it feels like a good time to ask what's going on.
MORE: Premier League biggest transfers: Where does Mykhailo Mudryk rank?
Have Chelsea broken the transfer market?
Despite Todd Boehly's maverick and often perplexing manoeuvrings, the answer is no. According to The Athletic, Chelsea beat Arsenal to Mudryk due to how they agreed to structure the deal, with their add-ons to reach €100m "more achievable and realistic".
This means Arsenal were also willing to sanction a similar outlay for the player. In contrast to Boehly's fledgling Chelsea regime, Arsenal's football operation has become one of the most respected in the Premier League. They are not viewed as lavish spenders and the virtues of a club working to a clear plan in line with the manager's vision is currently there for all to see at the top of the table.
Mudryk, like Nunez and Antony, had played fewer than 60 games in a European top division before joining the €100m club. Increasingly, clubs are paying a premium for potential.
Ahead of last weekend's Manchester derby, ESPN examined Antony's move to United. According to the report, Old Trafford sources conceded they had overpaid for the 22-year-old Brazil international but applied logic to the decision.
Firstly, manager Erik ten Hag knew Antony from his time at Ajax and is convinced he has huge potential to improve. Another reason offered in mitigation was United's expectation that other leading clubs in England and Europe could enter bidding wars for players of Antony's profile in 2023, thereby driving his price up further.
European top-flight appearances
| Player | League | Appearances | Goals | Assists |
| Darwin Nunez | Primeira Liga | 57 | 32 | 14 |
| Antony | Eredivisie | 57 | 18 | 13 |
| Mykhailo Mudryk | Ukrainian Premier League | 39 | 9 | 13 |
| Enzo Fernandez | Primeira Liga | 15 | 1 | 3 |
*as per Transfermarkt
Has the Premier League broken the transfer market?
Not to come over all Andrea Agnelli, but sort of, yes.
There has never been more money in elite football, nor has there ever been a higher concentration of that finance within an elite few.
The doomed European Super League project was a landgrab motivated in part by those prestige clubs outside England trying to keep up with the might of the Premier League.
Deloitte published its latest Football Money League this week. Eleven of the top 20 were Premier League clubs. Arsenal are back into the top 10 ahead of Juventus despite not playing any European football last season. Serie A champions AC Milan come in 16th, a place below West Ham.
This is not to suggest major clubs outside England have been helpless victims over recent years. Barcelona offer the most staggering example of horrific financial mismanagement that has compounded this divide.
Nevertheless, the outcome is a transfer window in which, by January 20, Premier League clubs had already shelled out more than €350m and the Bundesliga is the only other of the 'big five' divisions to break €40m.
Top 5 leagues January 2023 transfer expenditure
| Division | Expenditure |
| Premier League | €352.9m |
| Bundesliga | €34m |
| LaLiga | €22.1m |
| Serie A | €9.1m |
| Ligue 1 | €8.3m |
*as per Transfermarkt on 20/01/2023
This creates a perfect storm for selling clubs. They know Premier League sides have money to burn, while the likes of United are aware — as they admitted after signing Antony — that rivals with similar financial means will also be up to speed on their own targets due to advanced scouting networks.
The upshot is clubs paying a premium for potential.
MORE: Premier League transfer spending rankings for January window 2023
Is there a lost generation in elite football?
Of course, paying over the odds for the next generation might be preferable to the alternative of trying to prise established players at the peak of their powers away from their current employers.
The Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo era is belatedly coming to an end, with Messi crowned world champion and Ronaldo taking a lucrative step towards retirement in Saudi Arabia.
It is notable that the men who have broken the duo's vice-like grip on football's major individual awards are Luka Modric, Robert Lewandowski and Karim Benzema, three more sublime performers in their mid 30s.
Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland, each 22, are the presumed heirs as opposed to more experienced players in what should be their prime years. The hottest properties on the coming summer market alongside Fernandez (22) are likely to be Borussia Dortmund midfielder Jude Bellingham (19) and Napoli winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (21).
This cyclical anomaly is another factor that is driving the well-monied few in the Premier League to invest in the stars of tomorrow.
