It’s amazing to think that Mo Salah, who is 31 years old, might soon become the most expensive player in history.
Most of the record money has been spent on talents who are in their early to mid-20s, as purchasers are often hesitant to spend a lot of money on players who are either earning their coaching badges or looking for the coziest punditry chair.
Al-Ittihad of the Saudi Pro League, who are negotiating a £200 million+ transfer deal to move Salah to the Gulf nation, don’t have any such reservations because they have several long-term goals for the Liverpool attacker.
Even if today’s probable record-breaking transaction may seem weird, a 30-year-old celebrity has been sold before for a lot of money. The 10 most costly transactions involving a 30-something are listed below by Daily Star Sport.
After scoring 203 goals in nine seasons with Fiorentina, ‘Batigol,’ as he was called, transferred to Roma in 1999.
At the time, a club had never spent more than £31 million for a player in his 30s, and that record would remain for nearly 20 years.
You can only watch the entire Champions League action this year on TNT. You can watch every game as Manchester City attempts to retain their title as the best and biggest football competition in the world, from the group stage to the championship game.
Several outstanding Dortmund players, including Mats Hummels, were plucked by Bayern Munich at the height of their careers, but Dortmund was able to lure him back a few years later.
When the 30-year-old was still among the finest defenders in the world at the time, paying £32 million seemed like a fair deal—until you consider that they had lost him for free three years before.
Rajda Nainggolan, a midfielder from Belgium, was one of those players who was frequently mentioned in connection with a high-profile transfer, but he didn’t succeed in landing one until he was well into his 30s.
In 2018, he transferred from Roma to Inter Milan, but he only stayed for one season before being loaned to Cagliari for a few years. As a result, he painfully missed Inter’s Scudetto-winning season in 2020/21.
It was a great shock to witness Paulinho being paraded around Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona in 2017 given the course of his Tottenham career.
The Brazilian was parachuted into Catalonia as part of the club’s futile reinvestment of the money they received for Neymar that summer, despite having wasted away in China for the previous three years. A year later, he returned to China.
In order to lure the 33-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo to Turin in 2018, Juventus smashed the Italian transfer record. This marked the end of Ronaldo’s spectacular nine-year relationship with Real Madrid.
The Portuguese star scored a ton of goals and took home a few trophies during his three seasons with the club, but there were rumors that his presence hindered the team’s tactical effectiveness, which some would point to as evidence for Juve’s apparent and ongoing domestic decline during Ronaldo’s time there.
After signing Harry Kane to the club just a few days after the former Tottenham striker’s 30th birthday this summer, Bayern Munich finally signed a replacement for Lewandowski.
The captain of England is off to a great start at the Allianz, tallying three goals in his first three starts for the team, including a brace in his home debut against Augsburg.
