The players with the highest combined transfer fees

We all know transfer fees have been going through the roof over the last decade. In fact, there seems to be no limit as to how high these sums can soar.

It's one thing to shine brightly enough to be bought for tens of millions of pounds, but it is arguably more impressive to consistently command eye-watering sums of money across multiple moves.

We're going to look at the players who have had the most spent on them in transfer fees during their career.

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic - €169.1m

Obviously. Zlatan Ibrahimovic had to feature here and just three or four years ago he would be ranked much higher. The Swedish star, who recently retired, has played for many of the biggest clubs in the world. Naturally, that means he has moved more than average and the fees have been larger than average.

Money has been paid for Ibrahimovic's services on seven different occasions, with the biggest fee being the €69.5m (plus Samuel Eto'o) Barcelona paid Inter for him in 2009.

Angel Di Maria - €179m

It is not quite to the same extent as Ibrahimovic, but Angel Di Maria has played for some very big clubs during his career. He has moved for a fee on four occasions in his career, and three of them were very big at the time.

Kylian Mbappe - €180m

This is a name that could well rise up the list in the future, although the idea of him leaving PSG for free in 2024 is very, very plausible now. Kylian Mbappe has only ever moved for one fee, but it was an absolute monster. If he goes for a price again, it could well be bigger depending on the circumstances.

Antoine Griezmann - €180m

Mbappe's France teammate, Antoine Griezmann, has racked up the same figure, but he has moved more frequently than his junior compatriot. Griezmann has moved for money on three occasions, although that is set to become four at the end of June when he signs permanently for Atletico Madrid.

Philippe Coutinho - €180.3m

Philippe Coutinho has had a very odd career. Without reaching the heights predicted in his youth, the trigger-happy Brazilian has still achieved plenty. He has had money paid for him on five occasions, and one of them was the record sale of a Premier League player. He still has time to achieve more at his current home, Aston Villa.

Alvaro Morata - €189m

The hardest quiz question in football: Who does Alvaro Morata currently belong to?

The Spanish striker has been bouncing around a handful of big teams for years and to be fair, he has generally managed to score goals at every club he has played for. Money has been spent on him six times, and he is likely not far away from another move soon.

Ousmane Dembele - €220m

There was a time when it seemed Ousmane Dembele would light up European football for many years. Things have not quite panned out that way, mainly due to injuries, but he has still had some superb moments and there are plenty of years ahead of him.

Dembele joined Barcelona in 2017 for what was the second-biggest transfer fee ever paid at the time but left the club out of the back door. Paris Saint-Germain activated a €50m release clause in Dembele's contract but the Catalan club were only entitled to half of the fee, with the rest going into the player's pocket. Nevertheless, it all counts towards a swollen total.

Cristiano Ronaldo - €247m

He had to feature. There are two moves in particular that take Ronaldo to third on this list and one of them made him the most expensive player in the world for a short while. Ronaldo has been purchased on four different occasions, although his figure is now likely to stay the same given he is at Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia.

Romelu Lukaku - €333.6m

Romelu Lukaku is not going to go down as one of the absolute greats of football, but he finds himself at the sharp end of this list. He can be a devastatingly effective forward when the conditions are right for him, but his dips in form are too frequent.

That is part of why he has been constantly on the move, never quite settling anywhere. That being said, his level has always been high enough that he is worth paying a handsome fee for.

Neymar - €400m

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most expensive player of all time is at the top of the list. Barcelona had to break the bank (and shield the true outlay for years) to extract Neymar from Brazil before PSG dramatically changed the structure of the football transfer market with his world-record €222m (£198m) move in 2017.

Neymar cost more than twice as much as the previous record holder (Paul Pogba had moved to Manchester United the year before for £89m), sparking an avalanche of nine-digit transfer fees that only the super clubs can afford.

After six desperately underwhelming years in Paris, Neymar was at the forefront of another landmark development in football's financial landscape when he moved to Al Hilal for €90m (£77m), becoming the most expensive arrival in the 2023 summer exodus of star names to Saudi Arabia.