Where Harry Kane’s big-money move stands in British football history

Kane joined the German champions for an initial £100million.

Phil Leake
Saturday 12 August 2023 09:21 BST
Harry Kane has made a £100m move from Tottenham to Bayern Munich (Yui Mok/PA)
Harry Kane has made a £100m move from Tottenham to Bayern Munich (Yui Mok/PA) (PA Wire)

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Bayern Munich have announced the signing of Tottenham and England striker Harry Kane for an initial £100million.

The fee could eventually rise to £120m including add-ons, which would be a record for a British player.

Here, the PA news agency compares the transfer with previous big-money signings.

Most expensive British players

Based on initial transfer fees, Kane is tied at the top of the list of most expensive British players of all-time.

He joins England team-mates and fellow £100m men Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, with Rice having moved from West Ham to Arsenal in July and Grealish leaving Aston Villa for Manchester City in 2021.

Jude Bellingham is fourth, with Real Madrid paying Borussia Dortmund an initial £88.5m for his services in June.

Then comes another ex-Tottenham player in Gareth Bale, who Spurs sold to Madrid for £85.1m back in 2013.

Kane’s move knocks Harry Maguire out of the top five, although his £80m switch from Leicester to Manchester United in 2019 remains a record for a British defender.

Most expensive over-30s

Kane has become the most expensive player from any country aged over 30.

He surpasses Cristiano Ronaldo, who moved from Real Madrid to Juventus for £99.2m in 2018 at the age of 33.

The size of the fee is testament to Kane’s form, following a season in which he became the all-time record scorer for both Tottenham and England, with nobody else apart from Ronaldo having come close to commanding a nine-figure bid in their 30s.

Ronaldo’s former Real and Manchester United team-mate Casemiro was 30 when he swapped the Bernabeu for Old Trafford for £60m last summer, while Barcelona paid £54.8m for 30-year-old Miralem Pjanic in 2020 and £38.3m for 33-year-old Robert Lewandowski in 2022.

Highest fees received by British clubs

Tottenham have become the fourth British club to receive a nine-figure sum for an individual player.

Liverpool’s sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona in January 2018 remains the most expensive in Premier League history, with the Reds having received an initial fee of £105m and a further £37m in add-ons.

Like Spurs, West Ham and Aston Villa received an initial £100m for Rice and Grealish respectively.

Chelsea’s sale of Eden Hazard to Real Madrid – thought to be worth an initial £88.3 million in 2019 – completes the top five.

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