Every once in a while, one club comes along and blows everyone else out of the water in the transfer market. In the summer of 2025, it was Liverpool’s turn, with many hailing their window as an all-timer after a mindboggling £446 million ($597m) spend.
Already the reigning Premier League champions, Arne Slots’ Reds have consolidated in a big way, strengthening across the board and breaking the British transfer record on two separate occasions to seemingly guarantee another title tilt and a significant challenge in the Champions League.
But how does the Merseysiders’ truly remarkable summer compare to some of the most sensational transfer windows pulled off by a single club? Below, BALLGM ranks the most memorable of all time…
Every once in a while, one club comes along and blows everyone else out of the water in the transfer market. In the summer of 2025, it was Liverpool’s turn, with many hailing their window as an all-timer after a mindboggling £446 million ($597m) spend.
Already the reigning Premier League champions, Arne Slots’ Reds have consolidated in a big way, strengthening across the board and breaking the British transfer record on two separate occasions to seemingly guarantee another title tilt and a significant challenge in the Champions League.
But how does the Merseysiders’ truly remarkable summer compare to some of the most sensational transfer windows pulled off by a single club? Below, BALLGM ranks the most memorable of all time…
The early 2000s witnessed the dawn of clubs splashing out huge sums on multiple players in a single window, and Chelsea were at the forefront of that movement after their takeover by Russian-Israeli billionaire Roman Ambramovich in July 2003.
While it’s the summer of 2004 that’s best remembered as key figures such as Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, Ricardo Carvalho and Arjen Robben arrived, the first window under Abramovich a year prior laid the foundations and stunned the football world, as the Blues spent more than £150m on the likes of Hernan Crespo, Joe Cole, Juan Sebastian Veron and Claude Makelele, who were among 14 new faces at Stamford Bridge.
Manchester City had already made waves by seeing off competition from Chelsea to sign Robinho from Real Madrid on deadline day in 2008, but new owner Sheikh Mansour went even bigger the following summer. Amid a flurry of other business, City pulled off two stunning deals in the space of four days to leave their rivals fuming.
First, they sensationally convinced Carlos Tevez to reject a permanent transfer to Manchester United and cross the derby divide, reportedly paying the Argentine’s advisors a massive £25.5m sum to make the deal happen. Then, Emmanuel Adebayor was snatched from Arsenal for another £25m.
The flames of the Manchester rivalry were famously stoked as the Tevez transfer was announced with a sky blue ‘Welcome to Manchester’ billboard in the city, while Adebayor infamously ran the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the travelling Arsenal fans after scoring against the Gunners in September that year.
For reasons we’ll get into a bit later, Barcelona had money to burn in the summer of 2017 – and burn it they did. In search of attacking reinforcements, Barca obliterated their transfer record to sign then-20-year-old Ousmane Dembele from Borussia Dortmund, shelling out an eye-watering €148m (£135.5m/$173m).
Elsewhere, the Blaugrana also spent big on ill-advised deals for ex-Tottenham flop Paulinho – who was 29 and plying his trade in China at the time – as well as Nelson Semedo and Gerard Deulofeu. Dembele eventually came good after a very slow burn at Camp Nou, but albeit sensational, this will still be reflected upon as one of the worst transfer windows in the history of the sport overall, with the panic-driven splurging contributing to Barcelona’s current financial woes.
The advent of the Saudi Pro League‘s sudden emergence as a force in the global transfer market, Al-Hilal’s 2023 summer window was nothing short of remarkable as the Gulf State’s sovereign Public Investment Fund bankrolled a net spend of £302m on eight new signings to put the rest of the world on notice.
The influx of talent was, of course, headlined by the ill-fated €90m (£77m/$99m) arrival of Neymar from Paris Saint-Germain, while he was joined by the likes of Ruben Neves, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Malcom, as a host of big names were lured by the riches on offer in Saudi Arabia. Although they would inevitably go on to win the league, Al-Hilal made a huge loss on Neymar, whose contract was terminated after an injury-plagued 18 months.
Chelsea’s new owners had already set their stall out with some wild spending before the 2023 summer window rolled around, but their transfer activity in that period left jaws on the floor and some of their rivals seriously irked. The Blues made no fewer than 12 new signings, setting a Premier League spending record as they parted with £400m.
A quarter of that sum was splurged on Moises Caicedo alone, with Chelsea sensationally convincing the midfielder to move to Stamford Bridge instead of Anfield despite Brighton agreeing to sell him to Liverpool, before snaring the Reds’ back-up target Romeo Lavia from Southampton a matter of days later in another £58m ($74m) deal. Relative unknown Cole Palmer also arrived from Man City in an unexpected deadline-day switch for what now seems like an absolute bargain fee of £42m ($52m).
One of the flashiest transfer window performances in recent memory, ironically, 2021 probably spelled the beginning of the end of what PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi effectively described as the ‘bling-bling’ era at Parc des Princes. You’d be hard pressed to find a more ‘bling-bling’ signing than Lionel Messi, who was forced to leave Barcelona due to the financial mess at Camp Nou, and Les Parisiens were one of few clubs who could afford his astronomical wages.
If the Argentine icon’s capture wasn’t showy enough, he was joined by then-35-year-old former Clasico adversary Sergio Ramos following his release by Real Madrid, as well as Georginio Wijnaldum after his departure from Liverpool at the end of his contract. Dazzling as their arrivals might have been, none of them proved to be worthwhile endeavours in the long-term. Thankfully, PSG did do some smart business that summer, also bringing in Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes, who are key players today, as well as recent Man City signing Gianluigi Donnarumma.
We will probably never witness another mid-season transfer window quite like it; with their 2022-23 campaign drifting alarmingly under Graham Potter after Thomas Tuchel had been relieved of his duties, Chelsea’s Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital ownership went wild when January rolled around in a desperate – and ultimately failed – bid to salvage something from the season.
A frenzied month began with the Blues signing Benoit Badiashile (£35m/$44m) from Monaco and Joao Felix on loan from Atletico Madrid, before wingers Mykhailo Mudryk (£89m/$113m) and Noni Madueke (£30m/$38m) were snared from Shakhtar Donetsk and PSV, respectively. Then, to cap it all off, Chelsea broke the British transfer record with a £107m ($131m) move for Benfica and Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez, ending a saga that had dragged on all month.
Those big-money deals were supplemented by the captures of youngsters David Datro Fofana, Andrey Santos and Malo Gusto, taking their January spend to an unprecedented £320m ($407m).
Real Madrid did not hold back with their attempted ‘Galacticos’ reboot in 2009 at the start of Florentino Perez’s second presidency, in what undoubtedly remains one of the most sensational AND successful transfer windows of all time, with Los Blancos twice breaking the world record for a transfer fee in the space of a few weeks as they landed two of the finest players on the planet.
The £56m signing of AC Milan superstar Kaka was swiftly blown out of the water by the blockbuster £80m ($131m) transfer that brought Cristiano Ronaldo to the club from Manchester United after a year-long saga. If that wasn’t already sublime enough, eventual club legends Karim Benzema and Xabi Alonso also moved to the Bernabeu in that window from Lyon and Liverpool, respectively, as well as long-serving centre-back Raul Albiol.
It remains to be seen how we will reflect on Liverpool’s 2025 summer transfer window, but on paper it was absolutely outrageous. The Reds first moved quickly to replace Real Madrid-bound Trent Alexander-Arnold by signing Jeremie Frimpong before May was out, then broke the British transfer record for the first time by landing his coveted Bayer Leverkusen team-mate Florian Wirtz for £116m ($154m). Shortly afterwards, the Reds strengthened the opposite full-back position with the capture of Milos Kerkez from Bournemouth.
Against the backdrop of their dramatic pursuit of Newcastle’s Alexander Isak, Liverpool added to their attack in July by bringing in Hugo Ekitike, who was wanted by the Magpies, for a cool £79m ($106m). Then, after highly-rated young centre-back Geovanni Leoni had been snared from Parma, the Merseysiders finally landed their primary forward target on deadline day, with Isak arriving for £125m ($169m) to bring an end to an increasingly toxic saga as the British transfer record was broken once again.
The Reds’ total outlay topped £446m ($597m), the most ever spent by a Premier League club in a single window.
With that mindboggling sum in mind, there is certainly a case for Liverpool’s 2025 exploits to top our list, but PSG’s incredible dealings eight years previously remain some of the most dramatic and defining in football history, elevating Les Parisiens’ global profile massively while also having lasting negative connotations in terms of inflated transfer fees and more stringent financial rules.
The remarkable €222m (£200m/$262m) capture of Barcelona superstar Neymar remains the most expensive transfer of all time, as the Ligue 1 giants somehow convinced him to step out of Messi’s shadow to become the main man at Parc de Princes and the poster boy of the ambitious Qatari-backed project in the French capital.
But PSG weren’t done there, circumventing FFP restrictions by agreeing to sign then-prodigious 18-year-old talent Kylian Mbappe on an initial loan from Monaco, with an option to make the move permanent for €180m (£166m/$195m) which they would duly take up 12 months later. The recruitment of two of the most exciting attacking players on the planet transformed PSG into a European powerhouse almost overnight, and everyone sat up and took notice.
