Is Dominik Szoboszlai really the fourth most expensive transfer for Liverpool?
I looked at how much the 15 nominally most expensive transfers in Liverpool’s history would have cost today.
We’ve heard recently that Dominik Szoboszlai is the fourth most expensive signing in Liverpool’s history, having been bought by the English club for £60.1 million from German side RB Leipzig.
But transfer records are usually only presented in most places in terms of the amount paid at the time of the transfer. However, it may also be worth taking inflation into account to see how much the transfer fees were today.
That’s why I looked at how much the 15 nominally most expensive transfers in Liverpool’s history would have cost today. That’s how I found out that Naby Keïta’s 2018 transfer, in today’s pounds, would cost more than Dominik Szoboszlai’s transfer to Liverpool announced on Sunday. In other words, Szoboszlai is only the fifth most expensive transfer in Liverpool’s history when transfer fees are converted to their value today.
In fact, this is how it emerged that the 2017 transfer of Mohamed Salah – „only” the ninth most expensive Liverpool transfer at face value (£43.9 million) – is almost equal to Szoboszlai’s transfer fee in today’s pounds. It is also interesting to note that in today’s pounds, Jota was more expensive than Díaz, even though he cost £5 million less in nominal terms; as is the fact that the purchase of Oxlade-Chamberlain in 2017 is worth more in today’s pounds than the acquisition of Konaté in 2021. And Andy Carroll’s £35m transfer fee in 2011 would be £54.5m in today’s pounds, so it seems even more gross that Liverpool paid that much for him then.
I also looked at which of Liverpool’s previous record transfers would reach the £20 million mark today. Stan Collymore’s 1995 transfer fee of £8.5 million would be the equivalent of £20.9 million today, and Emile Heskey’s £11 million transfer fee in 2000 would be £23.6 million. Djibril Cissé was bought by Liverpool for £14.5m in 2004, which would be £28.4m today. While on this day in 2007, the club paid £20.2m to Atlético Madrid for Fernando Torres, the equivalent of £35.8m today.
